Indian eateries chant organic food mantra

New Delhi/Chennai, May 24 , 2015: Hotels and restaurants in the country are going out of their way to use organic produce in the food they dish out to ensure healthier and more nutritious meals. These products are naturally grown and no chemical fertiliser or pesticide is used to aid their growth. "The organic products have no preservatives or chemicals and also taste much better. This is the reason many hotels today prefer these despite being expensive," Raminder Bakshi, a hotel consultant in Delhi who had also been a chef at some of the top hotels across the world, told IANS. "There is an increasing awareness among Indians about organic food. They understand that pesticides which are used for plants could also be harmful to people," said Ayesha Grewal, the owner of the Altitude Store located in Delhi's Mehar Chand Market, which supplies fresh organic products to a few hotels in the city. Grewal's store sells about 500 products, ranging from vegetables, pickles and jams to cosmetics, all produced organically. A former French Air Force officer, Roger Langbour, runs French Farms on a three-acre plot a few kilometres away from Delhi. He organically grows vegetables like lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower and tomatoes and also rears poultry and pork organically. Langbour, who has been supplying organic food items to some of the top hotels in the city for the past 20 years, told IANS: "The demand from the hotels has been rising over the past decade, but is still restricted as organic products can be expensive." Langbour also holds a sale of his organic produce every Thursday at the French embassy in the Chanakyapuri diplomatic area.