Food cottage industries
The Food Chain
BBC
4.7 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cottage industries, usually referring to small scale home-based production, can be found all over the world. Often they provide a vital source of additional income for women, particularly in low income and rural areas.
In this programme Devina Gupta speaks to women who are working in food cottage industries in India, Eswatini in Southern Africa, and Ecuador, to hear about the work and the difference it makes to their finances.
Devina goes to meet some of the 40,000 women working for Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad, India’s multimillion-dollar co-operative, which produces 'Lijjat Papad' poppadoms, sold nationwide.
If you’d like to contact the programme you can email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk
Presented by Devina Gupta.
Produced by Hannah Bewley.
(Image: two women rolling poppadom disks in Delhi. Credit: BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:27.3 | The only thing left to do now is Ron. |
| 0:36.1 | In every community, there's a place where tradition, love for food and entrepreneurship come together right in the heart of someone's home. |
| 0:47.2 | A small kitchen where recipes are passed down through generations to make jars of jams or savory snacks or even a loaf of bread, |
| 0:57.0 | which are then sold in a marketplace in small batches. |
| 1:01.9 | This kind of informal setup for making food is part of the cottage industries that employs millions around the world. |
| 1:09.3 | In many regions, it is a way of survival. And so we travel |
| 1:13.9 | from India to Africa and Latin America to find out how such businesses have not only managed to thrive, |
| 1:21.4 | but also change food habits of people in the region. |
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