National organizations concerned

with Food and Nutrition

DFRL & NIPCCD

Ramya.H.

II M.Sc. (F&N)

DFRL

• The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) is

an Indian defence laboratory of the Defence

Research & Development Organization (DRDO)

• Located in Mysore, Karnataka.

• conducts research and development of technologies

and products in the area of food science and

technology to cater the varied food challenges for

the Indian Armed Forces.

HISTORY

• 28th December 1961 under the aegis of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

• The Defence Research and Development

Organisation (DRDO) is an agency of

the Republic of India, charged with

the military's research and development,

headquartered in New Delhi, India.

•Vision

To be a technological leader of excellence in food research

and product development

•Mission

Design, develop and evaluate; safe, nutritious and

convenience food to meet the needs of Services and spin off

to civil application

•Core competence

Development of convenience and Ready-to-Eat (RTE) food

products, implementation of packaging systems and

processing of food, testing and evaluation of food.

AREAS OF WORK

• Research and development in food science and technology

• Studies in the development of convenience foods, preservation

of foods, food safety, food packaging, and studies in the

spoilage of foods and safety of processed foods

• Production and supply of processed foods on a limited scale to

the Armed Forces and other bodies for national missions

• Toxicological, nutritional, and biochemical studies

• Development of pack rations, their quality assurance methods

• Preservation and packaging methods for long distance

transportation of perishable products

• Evaluation of nutritional requirements of troops deployed

under different climatic conditions

Issues related to food and DFRL’s

contributions

• Normal preparation of Indian style food is extremely difficult at high

altitude due to the lack of modern cooking appliances

Food supplies to high altitude areas encounter several problems

Terrain constraints limit land route and food supplies have to be air

dropped

This poses the danger of breakage of fragile packaging materials and loss

of supplies

at high altitude the efficiency of fuel is decreased by

Inclement weather

Rarefied atmosphere

Low concentration of oxygen at high altitudes

This in combination with low boiling point of water leads to delayed

cooking.

Troops do not feel like eating and suffer from lack of

appetite due to lack of sufficient oxygen and lowered sensory

perception

In addition to this, they also complain of indigestion on

taking foods with higher fat content

As a result troops posted at high altitude show preference

towards fresh fruits and vegetables

Dehydrated foods are also preferred by them due to the

light in weight and longer shelf life

Taking all these aspects into consideration, DFRL has

come up with

Retort processed meals ready to eat ration

(MRE)

Precooked, dehydrated composite pack

rations

Emergency survival rations

All packed in flexible polymeric film and their

laminates

RATION

The compo pack rations used by army are

Full meal compo pack rations, which provide 4100 k cal

Supplementary compo pack rations which provide 1430 k cal

These encompass a wide variety of convenience food products

developed at DFRL

It consists of

Ready-to-Eat (RTE)

Ready-to-Reconstitute (RTR) and Ready-to-Cook kind of

convenience foods

•Ready to eat retort pouch processing technology

Vegetable pulav, Plain Rice, Potato peas curry, Rajma curry, Dal

fry, Paneer peas curry, Egg curry, Chicken curry, Chicken pulav,

Vegetable noodle, No preservative chapaties.

•Other Ready to eat (RTE) products

Preserved and flavoured chapathies, Short term preserved

chapathies, Stuffed parothas, Appetizers, Chicken biscuits, Flax

cookies, Flax munch, Coco cocoa delight bar, Composite tasty

bar, Ergogenic bar, Flax oat tasty bar, High energy bar, Omega-

3-rich bar, Protein rich mutton bar, Nutri food bar, Sweet & sour

tasty bar.

Ready to reconstitute / ready to cook products

Puff & serve chapathies, Instant coconut chutney mix, Instant

cooking pulses and dal flakes, Instant cooking rice, Instant dal

curries, Instant idly sambar mix, Instant soji halwa mix, Instant

upma mix, Instant whole pulse and their curries, Variety of

freeze dried fruit juice powders, Sea buckthorn based herbal tea,

Flavoured Chapattis, Sea buckthorn based spiced squash, Flax

chapathi mix, Flax sweet mix, Millet kheer mix, Millet chapathi

mix, Millet roti mix, Millet dosa mix.

Ready to drink juices and Beverages

Tender coconut water, Aloe passion drink, Brahmi drink, Ash

gourd juices, Alovera juice, Vegetable juices

RTE Foods

In meals Ready-to-eat rations, the main constituents of

rations are heated by hexamine fuel tablets

The process is time consuming and cumbersome in field

conditions

Hence, simple device to heat the product at different field

condition with reduced preparation time is preferable

They have developed a Self-heating system called

"Thermopack”

This is based on a multi step exothermic reaction

This is found to be adequate to heat the product from

ambient to 65oC within 10-15 minutes

RTE Foods

Under sub-zero condition, the system enables to heat the

product from -10 °C to 40 °C

The system consists of

Heater pad

Treated water

RTE food pouch

Amenities such as needle, blade, paper plate, tissue

paper, instruction manual etc

Survival Rations

The army survival ration consists of two survival bars and two types of

long life chikkis

The ration weighs 500 g and delivers 2200 k cal

The naval survival ration consists of two survival bars in a lot of 600 g to

cater to one person for 3 days

The survival bar of Navy is based on calorie rich products formulated from

easily digestible carbohydrates

It has a shelf life of 3 years

They have also designed and developed emergency flying ration.

This has survival bars weighing 330 g providing 1320 k cal. for 48 hours

These survival rations can also be used in high altitude region

PROJECTS AND PRODUCTS• Some of the technologies that have been transferred to

entrepreneurs are:

• Retort processing in flexible pouches

• Mini combo pack ration

• Freeze dried foods

• Preservation of tender coconut water

• Preserved and flavoured chapaties

• Instant/Quick cooking foods

• Puff and serve chapaties

• Short term preserved chapaties

• Scrambled egg mix

• Combo pack ration

• Supplementary combo pack ration

• Cold stock drying technology

• Instant choley mix technology

• Minimally processed pre-cut vegetables

• Ethylene absorbed pad/scrubber development

• HT fruits

NIPCCD

• National Institute of Public

Cooperation and Child Development

• Developed for voluntary action research, training and

documentation in the overall domain of women

empowerment and child development in India.

HISTORY

• Established in 1966, the Institute has four Regional

Centres, Guwahati (1978), Bangalore (1980), Lucknow

(1982), and Indore (2001).

VISION

• NIPCCD is to be seen as an Institute of Global repute in child rights, child protection and child development

OBJECTIVES

• Develop and promote voluntary action in social development through training & capacity building of Government and Non-Government functionaries;

• Take a comprehensive view of child development through research and develop tools/design for supporting implementation of Government schemes and programmes and;

• Coordinate Meetings of MWCD with Stakeholders under different Schemes/Programmes and Policies for furthering the objectives and provide feedback.

FUNCTIONSThe major functions of the Institute are to:

• conduct, promote, sponsor and collaborate in research and

evaluation studies in voluntary action and in child

development;

• review programmes for children in the light of the National

Policy for children;

• review voluntary action in social development;

• identify problems and needs in the area of voluntary action and

child development and suggest approaches to meet them;

• provide technical service facilities to government and voluntary organizations in the formulation and implementation of programmes of child development and voluntary action;

• establish liaison with research institutions, universities and other bodies engaged in studies and activities which relate to the development of the child and voluntary action, and undertake collaborative arrangements;

AREAS OF INTEREST

• Early childhood care and development.

• Health and nutrition of the young child and mothers.

• Infant and Young Child Feeding.

• Prevention of micronutrient malnutrition.

• Adolescent health, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS.

• Growth monitoring.

• Nutrition and Health Education.

• Child guidance and counselling.

• Early detection and prevention of childhood disabilities.

• Learning and behavioural problems of children and parent education.

• Child rights and Child Protection.

• Juvenile justice.

• Women’s empowerment

• Holistic development of adolescent girls and family life education.

• Prevention of child marriage, female foeticide and female infanticide

• Counselling and support services for women in distress.

• Formation and management of self help groups.

• Prevention of trafficking of women and children.

• Prevention of Gender Based Violence.

NUTRITION RESOURCE PLATFORM

(NRP)• Initiative of the Child Development and Nutrition Bureau of

the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD),

Government of India

AIM

• to collect, collate and make available resources and materials

on nutrition and child development to diverse stakeholders

such as Nutrition & Child Care professionals, Frontline

Workers like Anganwadi Workers, Policy Makers and

Implementers, Academia, Grass Root Organizations as well as

National and International Organization working in the field of

Nutrition and Child Care.

• The NRP functions as part of Food and Nutrition

Board (FNB) with National Informatics Centre (NIC)

providing technical, IT logistics and hosting support.

• It would also have linkages with important

institutions of repute such National Institute of

Nutrition (NIN), Nutrition Foundation of India (NFI)

and Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India

(BPNI) and others.

REFERENCE

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Food_Researc

h_Laboratory

• http://nipccd.nic.in/abt.htm

• http://nipccd.nic.in/nrp.htm