Benfish to serve baked food items, launch café

Kolkata: In a bid to take on multi-national food chains like KFC and Dominos, Bengal's homegrown Benfish, a fishermen’s cooperative society, will soon introduce baked food products at its own nd franchisee outlets such as samosas, fish puffs, patties cakes and chocolates.

"Besides traditional fried food which we sell, Benfish is gradually shifting towards baked items as that is what the younger generation wants and trials are in full swing,” West Bengal Minister of State for Fisheries, Independent Charge, Biplab Roy Chowdhury told PTI in an interview.

“We thought of venturing into baked food items as youngsters and health conscious people want to avoid fried and oily food,” the minister said.

A top official of the company said products will be made available at various Benfish counters on an experimental basis soon.

Since the company specialises in fish based products, chocolates resembling fishes will also be launched, said the official, adding that the fillings and shapes of other baked items will be revealed later. Sandwiches are also being developed with fillings of various fish including prawns.

Besides introducing baked food, the company also plans to set up a 60-seater café near its headquarters at eastern India's largest IT hub, Salt Lake Sector-V, aimed at tech professionals and students who abound here.

The company has plans to open cafes at other places once their pilot project at the IT hub succeeds, the official said.

Benfish, which was registered under the West Bengal Cooperative Societies Act in 1978, provides leadership to 19 Central Cooperatives and 206 primary fishermen's cooperative societies under a three-tier cooperative system for strengthening sustainable pisciculture activities in inland and marine fisheries' sectors for increasing fish production and developing value added products.