Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd. (CAMPCO) will export half a tonne of processed tender arecanut to a Chinese company shortly for making chewing mouth freshner, on a pilot basis.

The company is said to be preparing it without adding tobacco and with value addition of other products.

According to M. Suresh Bhandary, Managing Director, CAMPCO, half a tonne of tender arecanut (chali variety) procured from Puttur and Thondamuthur in Tamil Nadu has been processed now and kept ready. It would be sent as a sample to the company. Now documents required for shipment were being prepared.

He said that the company would use the sample for research and development in making the mouth freshner. Kou Wei Wang Ji Tuan You Xian Gongsi company in Hunan province has shown interest for making the mouth freshner. A delegation of CAMPCO visited the province for six days from this June 13 and held talks with company. The cooperative and the company have held three rounds of talks since July last and have signed a memorandum of understanding. The company would prepare the mouth freshener from the peel of the tender arecanut.

Mr. Bhandary said it required 56 to 58 wet tender areca nuts for processing a kg of dry nuts as required by the company.

According to Konkodi Padmanabha, former president of the cooperative,the tender arecanut mouth freshner industry in China was five year old and the company with which the CAMPCO has tied up now is the first to start it. As there are 20 such industries in China, the raw material is in short supply.

There is enough scope for export of tender arecanut to China from India, he said.