Mohak Churi, Mahesh’s son has helped his father in his venture, after completing his education.

He believes that by doing so, he can generate employment for the people of his village. He says that he decided to use the equipments he already owned to experiment with chikoo and produce chikoo-based food products. His main motive was to contribute to his village’s development by providing employment to the people of his village.Ĭhuri runs his own export business of electrical appliances and also owns a factory at Bordi. Since his village was well known for chikoo, Churi decided to bring the fruit to the notice of the Indian public, and thus help his village grow. Initially they used chikoo for making chips and pickles. Farmers in the region began growing more and more chikoo trees.

Chikoo cultivation grew with the passage of time, and the place became known for it. And chikoo captured the attention of the locals. In 1901, Petit’s estate manager, Ardeshir Irani, carried some seedling along with him to the Bordi village, situated 130 kms away from Mumbai and sowed them in one of his lands. It all began when a 19th century Parsi textile magnate, Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, began importing chickoo saplings to India and planted them in his garden in Mumbai. Why chikoo? Here goes the story he shared with Outlook Poshan. And I wanted to add more value to the local tradition,” he says. I saw my village people making chikoo powder, chips, and pickles. “Bordi is my village and I wanted to do something for my village. An engineer by profession, he took up the initiative to come up with the idea of popularising chikoo. It was in 2016 that Mahesh Churi, a native of Bordi thought of stepping into the scene and contributing to the welfare of his village. It's all down to the brainwave of a local engineer, which has taken the world of children by storm.

While the concept of ice cream parlours has rapidly gained popularity across the country, these are the only outlets where people can enjoy chikoo delicacies at leisure-and not feel guilty. The Chikoo parlour in Maharashtra is a great example of how innovative we can be with a single nutritious fruit. All the chikoo parlours are located on the national highways, far away from the cities, which is a reason good enough to attract all the passers-by to halt and grab a bite. The first Chikoo Parlour came up in September 2016 at Bordi, with the tagline, ‘Sab Kuch Chikoo.’ The second outlet is located on NH-8, which connects Ahmedabad with Mumbai. The conventional wisdom is that this fruit cannot be cooked or preserved in any way, but this remote village has now set an example by coming up with Chikoo Parlours, healthy desserts and drinks made of chikoo offered as fast food alternatives at dedicated stores. With farmers dedicated to this fruit, women of the village making chips and pickles at home and holding chikoo festivals on the beach every year, the village finally got recognition from the Government of India in 2016, when the Dahanu-Gholvad chikoo of Palghar district received the Geographical Indication (GI) tag.īut that’s not all. Maharashtra, chikoo has been cultivated for long. In the beach-front scenic village of Bordi in Yes, that soft, brown and juicy fruit that’s almost as ubiquitous as the banana in Indian bazaars. As Nagpur is to oranges, Bordi is to chikoos.

Chikoo festival 2016