Feni: From hygiene to alcohol content, users to get the best

PANAJI

The genuine manufacturers of cashew feni are trying their best to ensure that various stages of making feni are standardised so that consumers get best quality product.

Years of neglect and lack of standards have resulted in people making feni in unhygienic ways, which has badly affected this drink’s image and also posed a huge risk to consumers.

The manufacturers represented by Goa Cashew Feni Distillers and Bottlers Association are trying extremely hard so that right from when cashew apples are collected to the stage when fermented cashew juice is boiled and distilled, people follow practices and use equipment, which result in high quality feni.

Gurudatta Bhakta, president, Goa Cashew Feni Distillers and Bottlers Association, said, “People use iron machines to take juice out of cashew apples, which is a very bad practice. This juice has corrosive properties. Therefore, we think they should use a stainless steel machine for this purpose.”

Using stainless steel machine will be a deviation from the traditional practice of stomping cashew apples using feet to extract juice, but will result in a very high quality product.

Bhakta also said that cashew apples should be kept in a pit made of granite stone or laterite stone and not of cement. This is because cement tends to get mixed with cashew apples, which makes the product very unhealthy for the consumer.

Following standards may make feni more expensive, as distillers will have to invest a lot. Regan Henriques, vice president, Goa Cashew Feni Distillers and Bottlers Association, said, “We are telling distillers to use stainless steel machine to extract juice out of cashew apples. But, everyone may not be in position to do so. It will help if the state government could give a subsidy for this purpose.”

Talking of other short-cuts, which unscrupulous elements take, Henriques, said, “We have seen that some distillers use aluminium coil, where vapours are collected, when we boil fermented juice. We think copper coil should be used as oxidation can happen with aluminium.”

But, copper is a lot more expensive than aluminium and that’s the reason a lot of players prefer using aluminium right now. The process of fermenting juice is also very crucial to feni. To this end, manufacturers suggest that juice should be collected in a pit made of ceramic tiles and not in an unhygienic way.

Manufacturers have suggested alcohol content in the range of 37.1% to 42.8% for cashew feni, which will happen if distillers follow all the standards.

Meanwhile, cashew feni manufacturers have already outlined these standards and communicated them to the state excise department and Food and Drugs Administration (FDA)-Goa’s office.

Salim Veljee, director, FDA-Goa, said, “We have already forwarded the suggestions made by feni manufacturers regarding standards to the scientific panel of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).”

The scientific panel of FSSAI will come out with standards, which will be binding upon all cashew feni manufacturers in Goa.