Soaring prices of coconut, coconut oil disrupts budgets of small-time eateries, households

“Kozhukatta”, a rice ball filled with shredded coconut and jaggery, a popular snack, has gone missing from items on sale at the Kudumbashree’s Janakeeya hotel (budget hotel) at Vyttila.

Long established as an affordable snack of common people, Kozhukatta, ironically, rose to the premium league recently, thanks to the soaring price of coconut, which is hovering over ₹80 per kilogram.

For a budget hotel, the price of the snack proved too good either for its liking or that of the customers, notwithstanding its popularity. The soaring price of jaggery, giving a stiff competition to coconut, has not helped either.

“Four coconuts are needed for making around 40 Kozhukattas from a kilogram of rice powder, and we sold them for 12 a piece. As it proved unfeasible, we replaced it with ‘Pongappam,’ another rice powder-based snack made of semolina, sugar, tender coconut water, and relatively fewer coconuts,” said Omana Ratnakaran, secretary of Janakeeya hotel.

The hotel also marginally reduced the number of coconuts, from five to four, for making side dishes for lunch, but reverted as the taste proved a casualty. Besides, the hotel was forced to shift to alternative oil for frying fish as the price of coconut oil, which has surged beyond ₹400 a litre, turned premium. “We had no other alternative as the price of a 10-litre tin of coconut oil surged to ₹4,500, which got exhausted in three days,” said Ms. Ratnakaran.

The household budget has also taken a hit owing to the mounting prices of coconut and coconut oil. “Coconut and coconut oil are unavoidable since they are perpetual ingredients in almost all the dishes that we cook. Once used to dishes made in coconut oil, it is very hard to replace it with any other oil, both on account of health and taste. The best we can do is to reduce the volume,” said Sarada Joby, a housewife.

M.G. Ramakrishnan, former president of the Varappetty Service Cooperative Bank, attributed the rising prices of coconut and its products to multiple reasons. Coconut production, he said, had dropped by 20 to 25% over the past few years owing to various reasons, including climate change. “The growing acceptance of coconut oil in the United States market has led to increased exports there. The demand for coconut products, including desiccated coconut powder and coconut milk, has also risen manifold in the European market post-pandemic,” he said.

Mr. Ramakrishnan cited the rising demand for coconuts for puja and related rituals in temples across the country as another reason. Truckloads of coconuts are being transported from coconut-rich regions in the south, such as Kangayam in Tamil Nadu — which plays a critical role in determining coconut prices — to places as far away as Jammu and Kashmir. This has also contributed to the rise in coconut prices, he said.