Ready-to-eat Manipuri eromba and singju unit

Imphal East residents grew up on eromba, singju, kangshoi and morok bora — Manipuri staples with no equivalent in mainland packaged-food retail and real latent demand. The opportunity is a small unit producing chilled and retort-pouched SKUs (eromba paste, ready singju, kangshoi soup base) for Imphal supermarkets and dispatch to Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai diaspora buyers via ethnic-food platforms. This builds on the valley paddy bowl atom and the surrounding valley vegetable and fermented-fish food base for inputs, and the Imphal urban node atom gives local retail demand and dispatch access; it captures the valley-paddy-to-milled/value-added gap by routing local produce into branded shelf-stable food. Buyers are Imphal modern-trade stores, NE-diaspora retailers and online ethnic-food platforms. Honest constraints: shelf-life and retort-process validation for low-acid pastes, building a 4-SKU range that survives the six-month dispatch cycle, FSSAI compliance, and standing buyer accounts. PMFME at 35% subsidy plus NER food-park subsidies fund the kitchen and retort line. Start chilled (faster, simpler), move to retort once two or three SKUs are validated.