Mangoes From India Still Have A Ways To Go

Mangoes are spread out on floors in writer Vidisha Priyanka?s home in India to ripen because the fridge is too small and electricity isn?t available all day long. Lots of fruit rot and are thrown away.

By VIDISHA PRIYANKA TBO.com

Published: May 30, 2007

TAMPA - The mere mention of mangoes evokes within me a range of emotions. A series of images flashes in front of my eyes and I can almost taste the ripe, plush flesh of the fruit that is so popular in India.

Nothing drives home the fact I am away from my homeland like having to settle for the apology of a mango in local supermarkets.

As an alien in the United States, I am reminded of home by the sight of mangoes on supermarket shelves or at the local Indian grocer, even though the fruit originates from South American countries such as Peru and Ecuador.

Mangoes are so much a part of me that when President Bush announced during his visit to India last year that a ban on importing mangoes to the United States would be lifted, I almost danced for joy. (I could have kissed him, Richard Gere-style.)

The lingering aroma and taste of those fruits, dripping with juice, reminds me of my father's efforts to plant two trees for each human being in India. He would have to plant more than 2 billion at that rate, but he settled for about 800. (Trees, not children.) My father owned mango orchards in our small village in India.

My excitement over mangoes has a lot to do with the pleasant memory of spending hot summer afternoons under the cool shade of the those giant mango trees, laden with fruit. The truckloads of mangoes being emptied in our yard when they were picked and the excruciating wait for them to ripen on the floors of our home reinforced my love for the fruit.

We used to sit around buckets full of washed mangoes, slicing them deftly, cutting them into cubes and eating them with a fruit fork if we wanted to be sophisticated. The best way to eat a mango, though, was biting right into the fruit, letting the juices run down the sides of the mouth and getting huge bites of the heavenly sweetness.

Almost all Indians who like the taste of the fruit are snobs about mangoes. The stores in America can stock all the Mexican and Peruvian mangoes they can get, but for Indians, the tastes and textures are never the same. Central and South American mangoes have lots of fiber, very little flesh and a huge seed or pit, and they just cannot hold a candle to the lusciousness of the Alphonso, Kesar, Gulabkhaas, Dushehri and Maldaya mangoes from India.

No Immediate Plans To Sell Them

So imagine my disappointment when I learned that no local supermarkets plan to sell them anytime soon. Questions about cost and the irradiation process before importing the crop to the United States remain the main concern.

Shannon Patten, media and community relations manager for Publix, said its supermarkets are not planning on stocking Indian mangoes since Publix has a good relationship with current suppliers closer to home in Mexico, Brazil and Peru. The Sweetbay Supermarket chain also has no plans to import Indian mangoes.

India is the largest producer of mangoes, with its 14 million tons contributing more than 50 percent of the world production. The United States banned their importation 18 years ago because of a pest called mango seed weevil. Weevils, as well as fruit flies, can be killed by irradiation. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture lifted the ban on the imports of several foods. USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service gave approval to facilities that perform the irradiation process before shipments are brought into this country.

Bhaskar Savani, who runs Savani Farms in Chalfont, Pa., lobbied to get the ban lifted. Savani is negotiating with Costco to distribute the mangoes, but the progress has been slow, he says.

"We are not trying to sell to the ethnic population; they are already sold," he says. "Indians would buy mangoes for $35 a box, but the American public is used to buying $5 boxes of mangoes from Mexico, and those are the logistics we are trying to resolve."

These logistics are related to costs, the price of irradiation and air cargo, which hikes up the price of mangoes to $35 in the U.S. market.

"We are looking into certain varieties of mangoes that can be shipped by sea, and that should reduce the price," Savani says. "The process is really streamlined for quality control. USDA has a limited number of growers and distributors on the list who can export the mangoes, and only certain varieties can be imported."

Savni believes demand soon will force the supermarkets to have mangoes from India on their shelves.

Wait And See

As for local grocers, they are waiting for the mangoes to hit the markets in New Jersey and New York, where major suppliers are located. An employee at Apna Bazaar, which sells Indian merchandize at Fowler Avenue in Tampa, said it will have the mangoes eventually, depending on their cost.

Because of the strict control over imports, the fruits are not yet available to be ordered online. All Internet grocers have Indian mango pulp, chutneys and preserves available.

But unless the supermarkets agree to accept shiploads of the mangoes, it is not cost-effective for importers to ship them, Savani says. Local ethnic grocers do not generate enough demand to be financially feasible.

So it seems that mango lovers in the Tampa Bay area will have to wait until next season or until supermarkets are satisfied with the quality controls (or they can order them by phone from Patel Grocery Store in Philadelphia at (215) 335-4974).

I can see myself as a child, with my hands behind my back, reaching for the fruit hanging from the tree, and missing it.

I feel like that now; the box of mangoes is so close, yet I don't have them on my dining table.

TBO.com producer Vidisha Priyanka can be reached at (813) 259-8086 or vpriyanka@tbo.com