mid-day's 42nd anniversary: CHUK De, India

Ved Krishna 46An ecowarrior who is striving to develop easily accessible alternatives to singleuse plastic and Styrofoam productsThe pandemic has propelled seismic shifts in the way we live consume think and plan for the future While most businesses are awaiting the end of the outbreak there are others which either through happy coincidence or simply because of the changing mindset are seeing no pain in the profit linesA compostable biodegradable tableware product with crockery like plates bowls lids of different sizes and trays called CHUK is seeing a surge thanks to new sensibilities CHUK has partnered with more than 25 hospitals across the country a top Bandra hospital being one of themCHUK makes its tableware from sugarcane fibre that decomposes within 60 days By contrast plastic takes 500 years to degradeIt was launched in 2017 by Yash Pakka which is the parent company Ved Krishna vicechairman of Yash Pakka said of his CHUK brainchild ldquoIn 1999 at Yash Pakka I noticed that most materials used in packaging especially food were either plasticcoated laminated or covered in cellophane that was harmful to the environmentrdquoKrishna 46 conceptualised CHUK in 2014 and the vicechairmanrsquos battle to eliminate singleuse plastic and Styrofoam products to secure the environment from further damage had started Indiarsquos ecofriendly warriors had one more ally who had joined them The brand was officially launched in 2017 announcing the joining of the war on products and practices detrimental to the environment Krishna said ldquoPlastic takes more than 500 years to decompose CHUKrsquos tableware products are made from sugarcane fibre bagasse which decomposes in just 60 daysrdquoCHUK made greater inroads during the Covid outbreak as Krishna explained ldquoDuring the pandemic we diversified our outreach We have a robust presence on ecommerce platforms We also started supplying to various hospitals where demand was high We also focused on the delivery segment for dry and semidry food itemsrdquoThe facility is based in Ayodhya with Yash Pakka making compostable paper in his Ayodhya factory for four decades so CHUKrsquos products were different forms of the same genre so to speakKrishna said ldquoDuring the pandemic these products became extremely relevant as they are singleuse and harmful chemical free We got a breakthrough in major hospitals where hygiene was of utmost importance We also introduced 14day Covid kits with products for the quarantine periodrdquoAccording to Krishna to be optimistic and upbeat about playing a part in changing the world grandiose though it may sound is not unrealistic Commercially we see change but for Krishna there is a shift in residences too The entrepreneur said ldquoI hope to see largescale change in the coming years Optimistically speaking it has already begun on account of safety and hygiene From biodegradable masks ecofriendly packaging to organic food the pandemic has propelled this shiftrdquoThe future is about expanding the Mumbai market With the buzzword being lsquosustainablersquo Krishna explainedldquoThe pandemic added relevance but we have to look much beyond We aim to introduce new product lines and double the capacity in 2023 We are heavily focused on Mumbai as a marketrdquo CHUK is part of the new age biz lexicon you have heard of bluecollar workers and the whitecollar segment The marriage of ecoconsciousness with commerce making innovators work towards green goals may have given rise to the phrase lsquogreencollar entrepreneurrsquo With work to be done in the clean planet space like making products more affordable and so accessible to a wider base it may not yet mean laughing all the way to the bank but the singleuse is safer sensibility has certainly ensured a CHUKle or two