Bakeys is a Hyderabad-based edible cutlery company founded by Narayana Peesapaty. He wanted to use a raw material that wouldn’t consume too much water during manufacture. Hence, he opted to make his brand of single-use cutlery from a mix of sorghum (jowar), rice and wheat flours. Sorghum grows well in semi-arid areas and doesn’t become soggy quickly when dipped in liquids.
At a time when the world over, people are trying to reduce plastic waste, several innovations have emerged over the years, to aid the cause. A leap in this direction are handy, delectable, consumable cutlery. Yes, you heard right. It is exactly what it sounds like cutlery that you can chomp down, along with the food that comes in it Disposable plastic cutlery, straws, cups, and containers generate large amounts of plastic waste. Hence, researchers have been coming out with new innovations in containers used to hold and package food to try and reduce plastic waste. The container holding the food is itself good enough to eat, and the packaging is either edible or compostable
The flour is kneaded with hot water, shaped and baked hard without using any artificial additive or preservative. Since it is dehydrated, it can last for up to two years if stored in an air-tight container in a cool dry, insect-free place. It should not be wiped, washed or reused.
The spoons, that taste like a dry cracker, come in varied flavours including sugar, ginger-cinnamon, cumin, mint-ginger and carrot-beetroot. The portion dipped in hot food softens, absorbing the dish’s flavours.
Uneaten spoons can be disposed in mud or put in a potted plant, because, unlike com-based biodegradable plastic they don’t need special composting to break down.
The company has been making such spoons since 2010 in a facility which employs only women. Successful crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Ketto enabled it to expand, and now, they are sold globally.
Bite size perfection
In 2012, David Edwards, the founder of WikiFoods, launched WikiCells, an edible packaging for foods and liquids.
The WikiCell has two layers. The outer biodegradable layer, which can be peeled off and thrown away, much like a fruit peel, is made of tapioca or sugarcane bagasse, the dry pulpy residue left after sugar has been extracted. It is gelatinous and soft, like a translucent cell. The inner layer is an edible shell made of a hardened composite such as chocolate or isomalt, a sugar substitute.
Incredible Foods, co-founded by Edwards, manufactures and markets WikiCells in the U.S. as Perfectly Free bites in non-dairy ice-cream form and as frozen fruit bites.
Picture Credit : Google
