Ice cream of millets? Two Agra youths do it!
Encouraged by the Shree Anna Yojna – a scheme to promote millets – two youths of Agra have launched a start-up and are manufacturing ice cream made of millets which they claim is widely accepted
Encouraged by the Shree Anna Yojna – a scheme to promote millets – two youths of Agra have launched a start-up and are manufacturing ice cream made of millets which they claim is widely accepted.
These two brothers had lost their job during the Covid-19 pandemic but began this start-up and have expanded their work to a turnover of ₹45 lakh.
On the proposal of India, the United Nations has declared 2023 as the Year of Millets. During her budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had described millets as Shree Anna - the mother of all grains.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath have decided to give a renewed push to millets which encouraged these two youth from Agra to begin their start-up.
Gagan and Vivek Upadhayaya have begun manufacturing millets ice cream. “Our turnover has increased from ₹15 lakh initially to ₹45 lakh and we are in position to give employment to 35 youths,” said the Upadhyaya brothers.
These two youths are from village Kundol located on Fatehabad Road in Agra and acquired a degree in food processing and dairy technology from Dayalbagh Educational Institute, a deemed university in Agra city. They both got jobs in an ice-cream manufacturing company but lost their jobs in 2020 due to the pandemic.
“We both began our ice cream manufacturing unit in December 2020 but again, everything was locked down in April 2021. But we continued with our work somehow. Recently, encouraged by the initiative of the PM and CM we began using millets in our ice cream and kulfi and added pure honey to it and the combination was liked,” said Vivek Upadhayaya.
“With government assistance, we did better planning and did elaborate market research and now we are providing jobs to 35 other unemployed youths in our start-up. The millets’ ice cream is being liked by all age groups as it is good for health. During the promotion we have kept the cost at ₹10 per piece,” said Gagan.
The two brothers are now planning to use other grains if millets this summer and are illustrating benefits of it to their clients.