This chicken seller is making meat eco-friendly and flavourful. Here’s how

Meet Abdul Razak, a 57 year old chicken seller at Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. He isn’t the regular chicken sellers at your neighbourhood market. Unlike other, Razak sells chicken not in a plastic bag but palmyra leaf boxes.

Being in this profession for almost 10 years now, he used to sell chicken with a heavy heart thinking about the consequences that too much usage of plastic bags would result in.

Tuticorin and Tirunelveli are known across the country for the art of palmyra boxes. Taking a cue from this, Razak found some vendors in village who agreed to take orders in bulk at a reasonable rate. And that is when he decided to make a switch from plastic bags to these organic boxes.

Before the advent of plastic bags, these boxes were used. And Razak has again gone back to the history to save the environment. For small quantities, however, Razak uses paper and banana leaf as these boxes are costlier.

Not only are these paymra boxes eco-friendly, the fibre in it lets air seep through and keep the meat fresher for longer hours. Also the palm leaves has an aroma that gets infused into the chicken and adds to the flavour while being cooked.

It’s actually the plan of Razak’s son, Sahul Meeran, a chemical engineer working with a pharmaceutical company at Vizag, who thought of this grand plan. Razak had asked his son to find an alternative to plastic bags as that litter too much and affects the environment.

Meat in palymra boxes are a huge hit and people in the locality are quite ecstatic. Razak told The Times of India,” Of late there is lot of awareness among people also. They are willing to bring utensils to buy meat. After I have introduced palmyra boxes, a lot of people are keen on using them and traders have asked for such boxes.”

(Image: India Times)