Kochi: The intriguing relation between migration and the food industry unravelled itself as three young entrepreneurs from Kerala shared their insights at a session of Malayala Manorama Sampadyam Business Summit 2025, held at Grand Hyatt, Bolgatty, Kochi on Thursday.

Annie Vinod Manjila, export director of Manjilas Group, spoke about how a far-sighted vision of the Malayali diaspora’s food demand in the early 1990s contributed to the success of her family business. “Our success was in realising the demand for spices among the Malayali diaspora in the early 1990s. The migrated population needed their traditional spices and food. We were able to make use of this opportunity,” she said.

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Manjila was speaking at a panel discussion on Unlocking Global Market Opportunities: Key Strategies. Her fellow panellists were Aju Jacob, managing director of Synthite Industries, and Alex K Ninan, managing partner of Baby Marine International.

She said that the Malayali diaspora has always had a significant influence on her company's fortunes from a supply enable angle.

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Ninan echoed Manjila’s views, highlighting the increasing demand for value-added products such as marinated and ready-to-cook food. He said India was still an emerging market for seafood. He said his company aims to make India a seafood processing hub.

While his fellow panellists spoke about going abroad with their products, Jacob shared interesting experiences of his company’s journey to different parts of the world in search of the right kind of raw materials for products such as oleoresins and neutraceuticals.

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He said his company follows the policy of doing production closer to the origin of the raw material as it helps them not to compromise on quality which could be affected while shifting them long distances.

On the diaspora angle, he said there is no direct influence of the Malayali population abroad on their products because they are mainly in the business sector. However, he said the fact that Indian food is getting popular in other parts of the world helps them as oleoresins are used in Indian food processing. P Kishore, business editor, Malayala Manorama, moderated the session.

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