Mangaluru : Taking forward its year-old proposal of marketing arecanut in China, Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd. (CAMPCO) will export first consignment of two tonnes of processed tender arecanut to that country in the first week of August on a pilot basis.

It is for a company in Hunan province for making chewing “mouth freshner”. A delegation of CAMPCO visited the province for six days from June 13 and held talks with Kou Wei Wang Ji Tuan You Xian Gongsi company. The cooperative and the company have held three rounds of talks since July last and have signed a memorandum of understanding.

Addressing presspersons here on Tuesday, S.R. Satishchandra, president, CAMPCO, said that the company wanted to prepare the mouth freshener from the peel of the tender arecanut.

The cooperative would procure the tender arecanut required for the first consignment from Thondamuthur in Tamil Nadu and Wayanad area in Kerala.

M. Suresh Bhandary, managing director, CAMPCO, said that arecanut growers in those areas harvested tender arecanut and the quality “chali” variety tender areanut required by the company was also available there. After harvesting about four-month-old nuts, CAMPCO would process them for now under the guidance of the company staff who would arrive here next month.

Konkodi Padmanabha, former president, CAMPCO, and its current director who led the delegation to China, said that the company would market peels of tender arecanut as mouth freshner after value addition without tobacco.

“The tender arecanut mouth freshner industry in China is 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.

Mr. Padmanabha said that of the 26 States in China, people in nine States widely used mouth freshner made from tender arecanut.