Tender coconut parlour at Infopark

KOCHI: The much-hyped ‘Tender Coconut Parlour’ will be opened at the Infopark here on Wednesday. This is the first of the 5,000 parlours that the board is planning to open across the country in an effort to facilitate marketing of coconut products and boost the prices.Each parlour will be directly supplied by a particular Coconut Producers Society (CPS). A CPS consists of 40-100 coconut farmers of a particular area who will work as a unit in the production and marketing of their coconut produce. The Infopark parlour is under the Pappanchalla CPS based in Palakkad.“Through this system the Coconut Board hopes to provide the fresh produce of the farms directly to the consumer. The initial target for the parlour at Infopark is 1,000 coconuts a day. A similar parlour will be opened at Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram. Similar parlours will be opened in other cities, important institutions, hospitals and tourist spots across the country. The board plans to open 1,000 such parlours across Kerala and 5,000 throughout the country by the end of 2012,” the board said in a press release.The initiative is an attempt to provide a steady income for coconut farmers. Through this, the board hopes to market 25 per cent of coconut produce as tender coconuts.