Sale of salted snacks, dry fruit, petha goes up
Neeraj Bagga
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, October 28
The market is flooded with packaged food items, including salted snacks, chocolates, dry fruit and petha, during this Diwali festival season, giving a tough competition to traditional sweets.
Traders say these products are not only cornering a market share, but also displacing traditional sweets, which were popular among the people.
Increasing incidents of adulteration in sweets during the festive season are forcing the people to opt for other eatables, including namkeen, petha, chocolates and dry fruit, which have minimum chances of impurity.
Ahead of the festive season, reports of adulteration often crop up, which holds back consumers from pampering sweet tooth.
Many city-based sweetmeat businesses are venturing into manufacturing other products like namkeen and selling dry fruit to attract customers ahead of Diwali.
Although rise in prices of key ingredients is burning a hole in people’s pocket, yet it has not dampened their festive spirit as they have evolved novel ways to celebrate the occasion with non-khoya sweetmeats.
A resident of Joshi Colony, Sukhpreet Singh, said, he would buy ‘petha’ and chocolates instead of sweets, besides dry fruit and namkeen as these had a longer shelf life.
A wholesale merchant, Raman Mehra, said, “The sale of dry fruit has undoubtedly recorded an uptrend in the past few years. It has even forced big traders to float their own brands, which include pre-cooked food items and salted dry fruit, besides namkeens in beautiful gift packs.”
The demand for ‘petha’ goes up during the festive season as there is a little chance of its adulteration. It is made from white pumpkin, also called ‘chitta petha’ in common parlance. Expert artisans have been making ‘petha’ in the narrow lanes of the centuries-old Pethewala Bazaar, situated in the walled city, from generations.
A ‘petha’ manufacturer, Harjinder Singh, said apart from its delicious taste, it also provided nutritional value to consumers, which could hardly be matched by other sweets. “White pumpkin contains sulphur, iron, phosphorus, vitamin A, B, C and E, besides protein,” he added.
