?Illegal sale of meat would not be allowed in Dehradun, says Kaushik Madan

West Bengal Livestock Development Corporation (WBLDC) owned Haringhata Meat has tied up with an online grocery store, Delybazar, for sale of exotic meat. This is the first state government-owned company online tie-up.

The latest move of Haringhata will offer a wide variety of exotic tropical meat like lean pork, fresh pork, dressed Pekin duck, dressed turkey meat, dressed quail, lamb meat etc. available on the official website of the online shopping portal of Delybazar.

The tie-up has been entered into ahead of the Bengali new year or Poila Baisakh.

Gouri Shankar Koner, MD, Haringhata Meat, stated, “So far WBLDC’s sales were offline through Haringhata outlets spread across the state. We tied-up with Delybazar to venture into online sales. Delybazar’s initiative of selling fresh fish and other edibles is well appreciated.”

Exotic meat consumption is on a high and has become one of the growing markets in India. The demand for fresh meat and the lack of quality options in the traditional offline market have driven online meat selling amongst the target customer base. The consumption of exotic meat has broken through the glass ceiling of religious firewalls and personal squeamishness in an age when 20 million Indians are travelling overseas and are spending heavily on food.

Incidentally, Delybazar has been making it big in the market of online supply of fresh fish, meat and varied items of daily needs. Prior to the tie-up, WBLDC only used to control their business through physical marketing.

A group of men barged into the Opulent Mall in Ghaziabad and allegedly threatened eateries inside not to serve non-vegetarian dishes during the ongoing Navratra festival.

The entire incident has been captured on CCTV cameras. The men, who were nearly a dozen in number, barged into the mall when it was teeming with visitors.

They confronted the security staff on duty and asked them to prohibit eateries and restaurants from serving non-vegetarian stuff during the nine days of the festival.

A number of popular eateries, including McDonald’s and Nazeer Foods are located on the ground floor of the mall.

Security staff at the mall said the men had arrived at the mall on the previous day too.

Ravish Tyagi, the Mall's Chief Security Officer, said, "They claimed to belong to some Hindu outfit. They asked us to come over to a corner on the ground floor of the mall and asked us not to permit eateries to serve non-vegetarian food. They did not misbehave with the security staff, nor did they assault us. We did not find anything in their behaviour that was worthy of reporting to police. However, the entire incident has been captured in closed circuit television cameras installed inside the mall premises."

A staff member said, "The men were ordinarily dressed. They came over to the counter and asked us to take off non-vegetarian dishes out of the menu for the next nine days. We assured them that we have taken cognizance of their demands and will decide on suspending non-vegetarian dishes from the menu. They were convinced and went away. However, they told us that they will return to cross-check if we are actually adhering to their directions or simply hoodwinking them."

No case had been registered till the time of filing this report. Ghaziabad police said CCTV footage of the incident will be examined.

Salmantaj Patil, SP (city), said, "We haven’t received any complaint regarding the incident so far. Action will be taken if we receive a formal complaint. Investigations will be conducted into it."

Tyson Foods Inc., one of the world's largest makers and marketers of meat products, has announced the formation of a USD 150 million venture capital fund to back food and agriculture startups.

According to Tyson's Executive Vice President of Strategy and New Ventures, Monica McGurk, the fund will seek to invest in startups solving problems around food production, distribution, nutrition, food waste and safety.

The new venture arm will invest opportunistically in startups it is impressed by along these lines, and will not limit its deals to early-stage or mature companies only, nor to a particular product or technology-type.

Oxford researchers published a study earlier this year that forecast, "A global switch to diets that rely less on meat and more on fruit and vegetables could save up to 8 million lives by 2050, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds, and lead to healthcare-related savings and avoided climate damages of USD 1.5 trillion."

A Tyson spokesperson said, "Our interest in Beyond Meat reflects our desire to offer consumers choices and to consider how we can serve an ever-growing and diverse global population, while remaining focused on our core prepared foods and animal protein businesses."

While Tyson is based in Springdale, Arkansas its new fund, Tyson New Ventures LLC, will be headquartered in Chicago, a hotbed of activity for food tech startups since the rise of Grubhub and home to other food-and-ag venture firms including S2G Ventures and Cultivian Sandbox Ventures.

Mary-Kay James will lead the investment team at the new fund. Prior to joining Tyson, James was the Managing Director of Agriculture, Nutrition & Health investments for DuPont Ventures, and

"We have the ability to finance entrepreneurs and give them oxygen, but we have capabilities to help accelerate their growth and improve the odds of success for them," McGurk said.

Specifically, the new fund plans to help its portfolio companies, or other startups it is evaluating for investment, to connect with experts in various departments of Tyson Foods for everything from research and product testing to business development.

A startup working on technology to help restaurants reduce food waste may find it easy to meet one or two restaurateurs and test out new technology on a limited basis. But McGurk said, "It can be hard to make a technical solution work in a real operating environment at scale, especially if you have never been in the food service industry."