Tangy food craze – appemidi mango pickles

Tangy, crunchy, spicy appemidi mango pickles – the latest favourite of pickle connoisseurs. 

Every region of India has a pickle variety to call its own. In parts of Karnataka it’s the appemidi pickle – small appemidi mangoes pickled whole.

Jars of appemidi pickles find pride of place in the households in Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada and Shivamogga districts. Here meals are considered incomplete without a generous serving of the tiny, aromatic pickle.

Pickle fans vouch for its strong and enticing aroma. The fragrance is so strong that adding just a few pieces of appemidis to an ordinary pickle will change its taste and smell, according to the brochure of Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) – a Bengaluru-based government research institution. 

Pickle aficionados agree.

The aromatic appemidi mango pickles were virtually unheard of beyond Karnataka’s coastal regions until recently. But how did they become so popular that you now find them on popular e-commerce platforms? 

A unique pickling variety

Appemidi (translates as tender mango in Kannada) is endemic to the Malenadu region that receives plenty of rain. Though popular along Karnataka’s coast, it remained largely unknown elsewhere.

But thanks to social media, the appemidi pickle has gained popularity in places like Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hubballi, Belagavi and Mangaluru. 

Bottles of appemidi mango pickles fly off shop shelves the day they arrive.

One of the reasons is appemidi’s unique aroma and flavour. 

The term ‘appemidi’ encompasses many varieties of the small pickling mango.

Each of these appemidi varieties is unique as the fruits and the leaves have distinct aromas. For instance sade midi is the plain variety, jeerige midi has the aroma of cumin and karpoor midi of camphor. 

The other reason for its popularity is that it lasts for five to six years even though it is made without any preservatives.

It is thought to be the only mango variety used solely for pickles and never eaten as fruit. Since it’s tender, there is no pip and the entire mango is pickled.

Expanding market

The pickles are so popular that pickle makers, like Thirumaleshwar Hegde of the Nammoru brand, said that the demand far outstrips supply.

According to a 2015 report the appemidi market is valued at around Rs 12 crore per annum in Karnataka alone. But, according to K Ravishankar of IIHR, the unorganised industry’s value could be between Rs 100 and 150 crore.

“Every March I travel from Khanapur in Belgaum (Belagavi) to Shimoga (Shivamogga) to collect the mangoes growing in the forested areas,” said Hegde, who has 60 appemidi trees in his farm in the Manchukeri village. 

“We sell around 80 tons of appemidi mango pickles. But we still can’t fulfil the increasing demand,” Hegde told Village Square.

The pickle is also exported to the diaspora, mainly to Middle Eastern countries.

More farmers take to growing appemidi 

With the potential market for the pickles, more farmers have started growing appemidi mango trees.

Four years back Sameer Patil planted 500 plants in Lakkalakatti village which receives scanty rainfall, unlike the coastal areas. 

“Its ability to flourish in arid and semi-arid regions prompted me to plant this new crop,” he said. 

Several farmers growing appemidi in Tumakuru, Bengaluru and other places too hope to cash in on the demand.

Ananthmurthy Javali, an engineer who owns an appemidi plant nursery, has sold some 10,000 plants in the last few years. 

“Unlike other mango varieties, appemidi is unaffected by any pests. And contrary to popular perception it can grow in low rainfall areas like Gulbarga and Bidar too,” said Javali. 

“That’s the reason many farmers in Andhra Pradesh have taken to growing it,” he told Village Square. Farmers in Tamil Nadu are also growing the trees now.

A profitable crop

Appemidi mangoes grow in bunches – with 15 to 20 pieces of fruit in each bunch. The attractive parrot beak-shaped fruit is barely 3.6 cm long and each mango weighs just 10 grams.

A mature tree can yield 5,000 to 10,000 fruits, potentially fetching between Rs 15,000 and Rs 30,000 every year.

Rajendra Hindumane has 40 appemidi trees in his 2-acre farm in the Hosahalli village. He harvests around 20,000 mangoes each year with each fetching him Rs 3.

“This year, the best quality appemidi was sold for Rs 5 per piece,” Ganesh Kakal, a pickle manufacturer who owns 400 appemidi mango trees belonging to 40 varieties, told Village Square.

There are many varieties of appemidi, as can be seen in Kakal’s farm. Ananthabhatta’s appemidi – perhaps the oldest variety identified and popularised a century ago – is named after Anantha Bhat of Balur village. Other popular varieties include Malanji appemidi and Haladota appemidi.

Promoting appemidi varieties

Considering its market potential, IIHR collected appemidi types from Shivamogga, Uttara Kannada and Coorg districts to determine their genetic characteristics. 

Additionally, IIHR surveyed local pickling varieties, which led to identifying 62 different appemidi types that can be propagated through grafting.

Helping popularise appemidi, the Sirsi-based College of Forestry (CoF) has been holding appemidi fairs since 2015. The three fairs held so far have been highly popular among farmers.

CoF has so far distributed 20,000 high-yielding graft saplings to farmers in 76 villages of Uttara Kannada. 

CoF has also published a Kannada – English bilingual reference book.  

“We are presently conserving germplasm of 100 clone varieties of appemidi at our Malagi-based research station,” R Vasudeva, plant geneticist and professor (Forest Biology), CoF, told Village Square.

Sagar-based Sahyadri Range Appemidi Growers Federation with 260 members grows the trees on 45 acres. It helped appemidi get a Geographical Index (GI) tag from among India’s 1500-odd mango varieties. It was also instrumental in getting a special postal cover on appemidi released last September.

The federation has also gifted saplings of the Dombesara jeerige variety to 5,000 households, to encourage its cultivation. 

Hiren Kumar Bose is a journalist based in Thane, Maharashtra. He doubles up as a weekend farmer.