Brac set to market sunflower oil brand this yr

BRAC is going to market its sunflower oil brand 'Shufola' this year to help cut import cost and improve the livelihood of farmers in the coastal belt, officials said.
The popularity of cooking oils that contain less cholesterol and fat (harmful) is increasing day by day among the health conscious people.
Sunflower oil, rice bran oil, vegetable oil are now gradually being promoted in the groceries.
Bangladesh mostly relies on imports of cooking oil with around 1.7 million tonnes of edible oil being imported annually out of 1.8 million tonnes of demand, according to the Bangladesh Bank data.   
The monthly sales of sunflower oil in the country are 30,000 litres, the major portion of which is imported, according to the Bangladesh Edible Oil Wholesale Merchants' Association.
Superchain shops are the key distributors of the cooking oil mostly consumed by health conscious people, Md Golam Mawla, president of the association said.
He said the edible oil (sunflower) is imported from countries such as Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, Argentina, Turkey, China etc.
"India and Pakistan are now producing 0.25-0.35 million tonnes of sunflower oil a year each," he said.
This oil is popular to the people who are suffering from diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, he said.
Import costs of oil are nearly Tk220-240 per litre, he said adding if the government extends support to grow sunflower, import cost will be reduced significantly, he said.
BRAC is going to release the first local branded sunflower oil 'Shufola' from November of this year, officials said.
"Under the 'promoting climate adaptive technology' of BRAC, nearly 3,200 farmers were contracted to grow sunflower on 1,608 hectares of land in Khulna division to grow sunflower in 2013," Sudhir Chandra Nath, head of Agriculture and Food Security Programme of BRAC, told the FE.
"We had earlier fixed November 13 last for release of Shufola from, but further necessity to upgrade our machinery forced us to refix the date to next season (November'14-April'15)," he said.
He said imported sunflower oil is sold at Tk 270 to 300 per litre in the country but BRAC is expecting to offer it at 30 per cent lower rate compared with the imported product.
"We've installed a crushing mill at Kanchan in Narsingdi with a capacity of processing 10 tonnes of oil seed a day," he said.
"With the beginning of our market operation, we will be able to meet most of the demand of the country," he said on an optimistic note.
"We're helping the farmers in southern districts to cultivate high value crops like sunflower for its saline-tolerant quality while lands for the crop will be nearly 6,000 hectares next season," he said.
Dr Mahabub Hossain, an advisor with BRAC, said adaptation will be the key to combating climate change in future and so developed seeds and technologies should be adapted with a shifting climate.
Dr Hossain said that introduction of sunflower in the coastal belts could help reduce import cost for edible oil.
According to BRAC estimates, farmers are gaining nearly Tk 42,000 in profit by cultivating sunflower per hectare in Khulna division.)