Makers of famed Joynagar moa arm themselves with barcodes, QR codes

Authentic Joynagar Moa now sold in boxes with barcodes & QR codes to fight imitations.

Starting this year, the makers of the Joynagar moa — the highly popular winter sweet of Bengal — will sell their product in boxes bearing barcodes and QR codes in order to keep imitations in check.

The moa is a popped-rice ball held together with fresh date-palm jaggery that is extracted from December to February, and its making is so synonymous with the town of Joynagar, located about 50 km from Kolkata, that it is hardly referred to as ‘moa’ but almost always as ‘Joynagar moa’. The confectionary earned the geographical Indication tag of Joynagar Moa in 2015.

“We are the ones who make the real Joynagar moa, but there are many who make their own moa and claim it is from Joynagar. Not only do they make monetary gains while we remain deprived, even customers are deprived of what is authentic. Why should we allow this to happen?” Ashok Kumar Kayal, founding secretary of the Joynagar Moa Nirmankari Society, told The Hindu.

“So this year, with the help of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, we have introduced boxes that will have a barcode as well as QR code that will give details about the manufacturer as well as ingredients. These codes can’t be imitated and should help check manufacture of fake boxes,” Mr. Kayal said.

In order to fight imitations, the association had also recently established a direct connection with many popular shops in and around Kolkata to supply their products. There are nearly 450 moa makers in Joynagar, and over 300 of them have so far received the GI certificate, with the highest number of certificates — 141 — being given last month.

Also last month, the association sent a fresh sample of the highly perishable sweet to CSIR-CFTRI in Mysore, which has been working towards creating a packaging that prolongs its shelf life from about five days to 3-4 months. An increased shelf life is likely to encourage exports, something that happened, for the first time, in 2021 — when about 400 kg went to Bahrain — but died subsequently. This year too, there are no orders so far from abroad, even though 36 kg have been sent to Pune.

The moa is said to date back to 1904, going on to be associated with Joynagar even though many other adjoining settlements specialise in it. It is a ball of aromatic khoi, or popped rice, mixed with date-palm jaggery, sugar, cashew nuts and raisins.