“Whenever I travelled, I used to feel terribly guilty about using plastic cutlery because it created so much plastic waste. Why couldn’t we create an alternative?” asks 48-year-old Narayana Peesapati, the founder and Managing Director of Bakeys Food Private Limited. As this thought kept bugging Peesapati, he came up with a brilliant solution of replacing plastic cutlery with edible cutlery. Plastic cutlery when disposed, does not degrade completely into the soil which poses threat of adverse environmental hazards.
Bakeys is Peesapati’s brainchild, and manufactures eco-friendly edible cutlery like spoons and chopsticks. The spoons and chopsticks are made of jowar, rice and wheat flour and do not get soggy when kept in food or water for a short period of time. When soaked in water for a long time, they soften and can be easily consumed at the end of the meal. Even if they are thrown away, they take only 6-7 days to degrade and are safe for consumption by animals and rodents.
Related Post: Adbins: The social enterprise looking to make Kolkata cleaner
Peesapati claims that the idea of edible cutlery struck him after he saw a Gujarati man using a piece of khakra as a spoon to eat his food. Researching further, he found that plastic consisted of toxins which can seep into the food making it unfit for consumption. Previously, he was a researcher at International Crop Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, where he found that growing more crops like jowar could help in maintaining the groundwater balance which is why he chose jowar to be one of the main components of his creation.
Related Post: Through his venture, FairPencil, founder Yatish Jain, helps create aesthetically brilliant architectural spaces
Bakeys products have international fans as well as they receive orders from United Kingdom and the United States. Currently his aim is to spread awareness about the harmful effects of plastic cutlery which he claims is the biggest challenge as people have been using them for a long time now. They sell products directly on the website and in some organic markets as well. Currently, this innovative and eco-friendly venture is still looking to break even; however, it has gained too many fans on social media.
To know more, log on to http://www.bakeys.com/
