Dogra-style kasrod, girgal and mango pickle unit

This unit makes and packs pickles in the Dogra style: kasrod (tender fern shoots gathered from the hills for a few weeks each year), girgal (a large, sour local lemon), mango, lemon, chilli and mixed vegetable, cured in mustard oil and spices. Jars and pouches carry your label.

Pickles are a fixed part of the Jammu meal, and kasrod and girgal pickles are hard to find outside the Jammu region, so they stand out on a shelf. NABARD's credit plan names mango and citrus among the district's fruit crops, and puts food and agro processing at Rs 218.00 crore. Visitors to Raghunath Bazaar already shop for local food to take home.

You need an FSSAI registration, a clean kitchen with drying space, and good ties with the people who gather kasrod and grow girgal. The hard part is raw material: each item has a short season, so you must buy and pickle in bulk when it is available, and the wild kasrod harvest varies from year to year. Many Jammu homes already sell pickles, so your taste and oil quality must stay the same batch after batch.

Sell to grocery and sweet shops in Jammu, to dry fruit and gift shops that serve pilgrims, at melas, and online to Dogra families living outside Jammu who miss the taste of home.