This Goan couple is revolutionising local cuisine with their award-winning millet products, promoting healthy eating through their business, Great Bites
Offering ‘Great Bites’ to Goans across the State, Unnati Uday Bagnikar bagged the first prize in ‘Cooking with Millets’ competition organised by the Directorate of Agriculture on the occasion of Millet Ustav on October 2, 2023 at the Darbar Hall at Raj Bhavan in Dona Paula. A millet fan, Unnati and her husband Uday Bagnikar are engaged in offering millet products in Goa. Unnati also pocketed the first prize in ‘Cooking with Coconut’ competition, held by the Directorate of Agriculture in association with Coconut Development Board and National Horticulture Mission in March 2023. The 45-year-old was also a resource person for value addition in millets, an awareness programme conducted by the Department of Agriculture at their Ponda and Dharbandora offices.
The Bagnikar couple, proprietors at ‘Great Bites’ are just a year-old in their millet business in Goa. Having their snack centre at Sadar Ponda, they cater to customers from North as well as South Goa and sometimes home deliver too, if the orders are sizable. “We started with millets and millet products retailing with our snack centre at Ponda,” shares Unnati who has had no job experience earlier. The couple, both commerce graduates, were drawn towards the health benefits of millets and hence decided to venture into this nutritious food, doing experiments in various products made of millets. “We offer millet poha, millet noodles, chemical free jaggery powder and jaggery bites. Apart from this we also offer millet dosas, millet appams, millet laddoos and our speciality is millet cheese balls. Additionally we also serve bhel, panipuri, sev puri, ragda pattice, Punjabi lassi, Kolhapuri misal, Bombay pav bhaji and Kacchi dabeli,” says Unnati.
The couple shifted to Goa in November 2021 from their hometown Sangli in Maharashtra due to their daughter’s education, but making the best of this opportunity, they started a small snack centre, which now has become the talk of the town in Ponda. Unnati recalls, “Initially there was not much awareness about millets and millet products, so we displayed photos of millets and their nutritive values, their benefits and the recipes from millets at our shop.”
The year 2023, being the International Year of Millet, the Agriculture department of Goa played a very vital role in making awareness regarding millets among the public. The department also helped farmers to grow millets, admits Unnati who is planning to introduce healthy and nutritional multi millet atta (flour), millet cake flour, millet bread flour etc to her customers in Goa. “We also provide good quality seasonal fruits like residue free grapes and naturally ripened mangoes from the farms of our friends in Maharashtra and Konkan. These fruits are distributed or sold from our shop, and sometimes we also do home delivery, if the order is in bulk,” says Unnati.
The Bagnikar couple is also into farming. They deal in aromatic plant Patchouli. “We grow mother plants and make saplings from it. Then we give it to farmers for growing and after harvesting we provide a buyback facility. As we don’t have our own land in Goa, our close friend has offered some part of his land for cultivating these aromatic plants. The aromatic plant business is profitable compared to traditional farming. Essential oil extracts are derived from this plant, which are then used in the perfumery industry. One more advantage of this plant is that the animals like monkeys or cows don’t eat it because it is not like a vegetable or fruit. Also, it is not perishable,” shares Unnati.
The seasonal fruits being perishable, the couple registers orders first from the customers and accordingly orders their authentic supplier. They also keep some stock available and ready with them. Currently the duo works as a team and have not hired any staff. All the purchases, distribution, and preparation are done on their own, claims Unnati.
The Bagnikars also take catering orders. At their snack corner, they provide chapati, bhaji in the morning session and snacks in the evening. “We are more interested in providing healthy and nutritious food products to the people so our maximum focus is on the millet and millet products because, today everybody knows that millets have a lot of benefits. They are full of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium as well as other essential vitamins. Our products like millet cheese balls, millet laddoos which also have dry fruits, ghee and jaggery, are popular,” claims Unnati, a homemaker prior to turning a food entrepreneur.
The couple has been focussing on the consumption of organic, residue free vegetables and fruits. Chemically grown fruits and vegetables have drawbacks, and are harmful to health, they believe. Sharing her experience of selling aromatic, naturally ripened mangoes from Devgad, Unnati says, “I did not have to advertise at all. Word of mouth publicity helped us get more orders and our hands were too full. The same thing happened with our residue free organic grapes. These are bright reddish, Indian varieties grown in a farm in Maharashtra. Because of the quality, customers were happy advertising them for us.”
Unnati also gives talks on millets in schools for creating awareness about this wonderful foodgrain which was neglected all this while. Our ancestors ate millets and remained healthy till they breathed their last. Modern lifestyle pushed the millets away from our platter, but as more illnesses are invited by junk food habits, millets are best to turn to, advocates the Bagnikar couple.
