Homegrown brands across India craft summer-ready sherbets and squashes

The Hindu

30-04-2025

With temperatures soaring, swap store-bought sodas with sherbets and squashes crafted by these small businesses across the country
Yummy Bakes, Chennai
Nandhini Poobalan kickstarted Yummy Bakes as a small venture from her Neelangarai home nine years ago. She started off by retailing cupcakes, cakes, and cookies, and soon after, included fruit concentrates on the menu.
Today, her rose, sarsaparilla (nannari), and strawberry concentrates are popular at organic shandies in the city. 'The rose variant is prepared by sourcing country roses, cleaning them thoroughly and extracting the essence from a cold pressed machine to preserve the goodness. Raw sugar is added to the extract and boiled until the desired consistency is reached. Finally, cold pressed beetroot extract is added to give it the pink hue of roses,' she says. The nannari concentrate's process involves cleaning nannari roots, soaking them for 24 hours, straining, and boiling.
As for the strawberry concentrate, it is seasonal and finds its use as cake toppings, ice cream sundaes, etc.
Concentrates are priced upwards of ₹300. For details, call 9791632262.
BaKaHu, Mysore
At BaKaHu aka Bale Kai Hudi, meaning raw banana powder, fruit squashes are more than just a refreshing drink. 'It's a story of sustainability, innovation, and community,' says founder Naveen Kumar HM, who has set up Abhay Natural Food Processing at Rathanapuri in Mysore district.
Alongside this, he runs a Banana Incubation Centre within Mysore's Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) campus wherein he trains budding agri entrepreneurs. 'Here, we craft natural and preservative-free squash varieties, using fruits sourced directly from our network of farmers. It is a sustainable business opportunity for farmers, students, and agri-entrepreneurs,' he adds. Today, the primarily women-led team crafts variants such as mango, gooseberry (amla), wood-apple, Java plum (jamun), star fruit, among others.
Naveen explains that before the processing begins, the fruits are thoroughly washed using ozonated water technology, which removes dirt and pesticides. 'Sorting is a critical step, and only the best fruits make the cut. Damaged or overripe fruits are set aside for composting, ensuring zero waste. For pulpy fruits like mango and guava, we use mechanical pulpers to extract flavour, and citrus fruits like oranges and lemons are juiced using specialised extractors. The juice is then strained and filtered to remove fibres, leaving behind a smooth, velvety liquid,' says Naveen, adding that natural sweeteners like jaggery or honey are used.
Upwards of ₹300 at bakahu.co.in
Himalayan Haat, Uttarakhand
In 2014, after her father, Ronnie Chowfin's demise, Divya Chowfin Diederichs and her mother inherited his legacy: a forest farm in Pauri, Garhwal. 'My mother Indira, a retired teacher, and I started making preserves from the farm's harvest in our home kitchen. These creations were initially shared with friends and colleagues in Delhi,' she says, explaining how Himalayan Haat started with a desire to put our farm produce to good use.
Their catalogue comprises small-batch syrups and concentrates made with the hand-pressed juice of local mountain produce (both cultivated and foraged) like Malta ornages, strawberries, plums, peaches and rhododendron flowers. 'We use organic khand (raw cane sugar) and lemon juice as natural preservatives. These are handcrafted in small batches on the farm and shipped pan-India directly from here,' adds Divya.
The process begins with gathering tree-ripened mountain fruits or fresh flowers, that are then cooked and pureed in small batches with natural preservatives. Highlighting their popular flavours: Malta cooler, and Spiced buransh (rhododendron), Divya says the latter is Uttarakhand's State flower, and known for its many medicinal properties. 'These flowers bloom for only a few weeks in spring, deep within the forest. Our climbers carefully pick the blossoms high in the trees, bringing them back to our centre. There, women painstakingly clean each petal, discarding the inedible stamen, stigma and other parts. The petals are then washed, boiled, cooled, and their juice manually extracted.'
Concenterates are priced upwards of ₹445. @himalayanhaatfarm on Instagram
Boovenhully, Coorg
After having lived on a coffee plantation in Coorg for several years, Sajini Joseph noticed that a lot of fruit was going to waste. Since selling them was not a viable option as local buyers offered very low prices, she started making squashes and sharing them with people. 'I began with just eight bottles of passion fruit squash. Today, we have seven different flavours and sell over 1,000 bottles a month,' she says. Over time, she expanded her catalogue to include jams and pickles; all recipes hailed from her grandmother.
With flavours such as pineapple and chilli, lime and chilli, orange and bilimbi (tree sorrel), passion fruit, among others, the squashes are made from fruits grown in the orchard. 'Our most popular flavours are passion fruit and mint and lime because they suit all age groups. Our chilli and lime, made with bird's eye chilli, is a great cocktail mixer,' says Sajini, who enjoys experimenting. 'One of my best creations is bilimbi and orange. The former is usually very sour and not widely used, but blending it with orange made it an amazing drink,' she says, adding that the squashes can be used to soak pastries, as marinades, and cocktail mixers.
The team's biggest challenge, says Sajini, is harvesting fruits during the monsoon season and storing them in deep freezers until needed. 'We don't make products in bulk because we don't use preservatives, which means shelf life can be a challenge. Instead, we prepare them fresh, based on orders.'
The squashes are priced at ₹400 for 750 ml. @boovenhullys on Instagram