National Organizations: Defence Food Research Laboratory(DFRL) & National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD)

1. National organizations concerned
with Food and Nutrition
DFRL & NIPCCD
Ramya.H.
II M.Sc. (F&N)

2. DFRL
• The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) is
an Indian defence laboratory of the Defence
Research & Development Organization (DRDO)
• Located in Mysore, Karnataka.
• conducts research and development of technologies
and products in the area of food science and
technology to cater the varied food challenges for
the Indian Armed Forces.

3. HISTORY
• 28th December 1961 under the aegis of
Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO).
• The Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) is an agency of
the Republic of India, charged with
the military's research and development,
headquartered in New Delhi, India.

4. •Vision
To be a technological leader of excellence in food research
and product development
•Mission
Design, develop and evaluate; safe, nutritious and
convenience food to meet the needs of Services and spin off
to civil application
•Core competence
Development of convenience and Ready-to-Eat (RTE) food
products, implementation of packaging systems and
processing of food, testing and evaluation of food.

5. AREAS OF WORK
• Research and development in food science and technology
• Studies in the development of convenience foods, preservation
of foods, food safety, food packaging, and studies in the
spoilage of foods and safety of processed foods
• Production and supply of processed foods on a limited scale to
the Armed Forces and other bodies for national missions
• Toxicological, nutritional, and biochemical studies
• Development of pack rations, their quality assurance methods
• Preservation and packaging methods for long distance
transportation of perishable products
• Evaluation of nutritional requirements of troops deployed
under different climatic conditions

6. Issues related to food and DFRL’s
contributions
• Normal preparation of Indian style food is extremely difficult at high
altitude due to the lack of modern cooking appliances
 Food supplies to high altitude areas encounter several problems
 Terrain constraints limit land route and food supplies have to be air
dropped
 This poses the danger of breakage of fragile packaging materials and loss
of supplies
 at high altitude the efficiency of fuel is decreased by
 Inclement weather
 Rarefied atmosphere
 Low concentration of oxygen at high altitudes
 This in combination with low boiling point of water leads to delayed
cooking.

7. Troops do not feel like eating and suffer from lack of
appetite due to lack of sufficient oxygen and lowered sensory
perception
 In addition to this, they also complain of indigestion on
taking foods with higher fat content
 As a result troops posted at high altitude show preference
towards fresh fruits and vegetables
 Dehydrated foods are also preferred by them due to the
light in weight and longer shelf life

8. Taking all these aspects into consideration, DFRL has
come up with
 Retort processed meals ready to eat ration
(MRE)
 Precooked, dehydrated composite pack
rations
 Emergency survival rations
All packed in flexible polymeric film and their
laminates

9. RATION
 The compo pack rations used by army are
 Full meal compo pack rations, which provide 4100 k cal
 Supplementary compo pack rations which provide 1430 k cal
 These encompass a wide variety of convenience food products
developed at DFRL
 It consists of
 Ready-to-Eat (RTE)
 Ready-to-Reconstitute (RTR) and Ready-to-Cook kind of
convenience foods

12. •Ready to eat retort pouch processing technology
Vegetable pulav, Plain Rice, Potato peas curry, Rajma curry, Dal
fry, Paneer peas curry, Egg curry, Chicken curry, Chicken pulav,
Vegetable noodle, No preservative chapaties.
•Other Ready to eat (RTE) products
Preserved and flavoured chapathies, Short term preserved
chapathies, Stuffed parothas, Appetizers, Chicken biscuits, Flax
cookies, Flax munch, Coco cocoa delight bar, Composite tasty
bar, Ergogenic bar, Flax oat tasty bar, High energy bar, Omega-
3-rich bar, Protein rich mutton bar, Nutri food bar, Sweet & sour
tasty bar.

14. Ready to reconstitute / ready to cook products
Puff & serve chapathies, Instant coconut chutney mix, Instant
cooking pulses and dal flakes, Instant cooking rice, Instant dal
curries, Instant idly sambar mix, Instant soji halwa mix, Instant
upma mix, Instant whole pulse and their curries, Variety of
freeze dried fruit juice powders, Sea buckthorn based herbal tea,
Flavoured Chapattis, Sea buckthorn based spiced squash, Flax
chapathi mix, Flax sweet mix, Millet kheer mix, Millet chapathi
mix, Millet roti mix, Millet dosa mix.
Ready to drink juices and Beverages
Tender coconut water, Aloe passion drink, Brahmi drink, Ash
gourd juices, Alovera juice, Vegetable juices

17. RTE Foods
In meals Ready-to-eat rations, the main constituents of
rations are heated by hexamine fuel tablets
 The process is time consuming and cumbersome in field
conditions
 Hence, simple device to heat the product at different field
condition with reduced preparation time is preferable
 They have developed a Self-heating system called
"Thermopack”
 This is based on a multi step exothermic reaction
 This is found to be adequate to heat the product from
ambient to 65oC within 10-15 minutes

18. RTE Foods
Under sub-zero condition, the system enables to heat the
product from -10 °C to 40 °C
 The system consists of
 Heater pad
 Treated water
 RTE food pouch
 Amenities such as needle, blade, paper plate, tissue
paper, instruction manual etc

19. Survival Rations
The army survival ration consists of two survival bars and two types of
long life chikkis
The ration weighs 500 g and delivers 2200 k cal
The naval survival ration consists of two survival bars in a lot of 600 g to
cater to one person for 3 days
The survival bar of Navy is based on calorie rich products formulated from
easily digestible carbohydrates
It has a shelf life of 3 years
They have also designed and developed emergency flying ration.
This has survival bars weighing 330 g providing 1320 k cal. for 48 hours
These survival rations can also be used in high altitude region

20. PROJECTS AND PRODUCTS
• Some of the technologies that have been transferred to
entrepreneurs are:
• Retort processing in flexible pouches
• Mini combo pack ration
• Freeze dried foods
• Preservation of tender coconut water
• Preserved and flavoured chapaties
• Instant/Quick cooking foods
• Puff and serve chapaties
• Short term preserved chapaties
• Scrambled egg mix
• Combo pack ration
• Supplementary combo pack ration
• Cold stock drying technology
• Instant choley mix technology
• Minimally processed pre-cut vegetables
• Ethylene absorbed pad/scrubber development
• HT fruits

22. NIPCCD
• National Institute of Public
Cooperation and Child Development
• Developed for voluntary action research, training and
documentation in the overall domain of women
empowerment and child development in India.
HISTORY
• Established in 1966, the Institute has four Regional
Centres, Guwahati (1978), Bangalore (1980), Lucknow
(1982), and Indore (2001).

23. VISION
• NIPCCD is to be seen as an Institute of Global repute in child rights,
child protection and child development
OBJECTIVES
• Develop and promote voluntary action in social development
through training & capacity building of Government and Non-
Government functionaries;
• Take a comprehensive view of child development through research
and develop tools/design for supporting implementation of
Government schemes and programmes and;
• Coordinate Meetings of MWCD with Stakeholders under different
Schemes/Programmes and Policies for furthering the objectives and
provide feedback.

24. FUNCTIONS
The major functions of the Institute are to:
• conduct, promote, sponsor and collaborate in research and
evaluation studies in voluntary action and in child
development;
• review programmes for children in the light of the National
Policy for children;
• review voluntary action in social development;
• identify problems and needs in the area of voluntary action and
child development and suggest approaches to meet them;

25. • provide technical service facilities to
government and voluntary organizations in
the formulation and implementation of
programmes of child development and
voluntary action;
• establish liaison with research institutions,
universities and other bodies engaged in
studies and activities which relate to the
development of the child and voluntary
action, and undertake collaborative
arrangements;

26. AREAS OF INTEREST
• Early childhood care and development.
• Health and nutrition of the young child and mothers.
• Infant and Young Child Feeding.
• Prevention of micronutrient malnutrition.
• Adolescent health, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS.
• Growth monitoring.
• Nutrition and Health Education.
• Child guidance and counselling.
• Early detection and prevention of childhood disabilities.

27. • Learning and behavioural problems of children and parent
education.
• Child rights and Child Protection.
• Juvenile justice.
• Women’s empowerment
• Holistic development of adolescent girls and family life
education.
• Prevention of child marriage, female foeticide and female
infanticide
• Counselling and support services for women in distress.
• Formation and management of self help groups.
• Prevention of trafficking of women and children.
• Prevention of Gender Based Violence.

28. NUTRITION RESOURCE PLATFORM
(NRP)
• Initiative of the Child Development and Nutrition Bureau of
the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD),
Government of India
AIM
• to collect, collate and make available resources and materials
on nutrition and child development to diverse stakeholders
such as Nutrition & Child Care professionals, Frontline
Workers like Anganwadi Workers, Policy Makers and
Implementers, Academia, Grass Root Organizations as well as
National and International Organization working in the field of
Nutrition and Child Care.

29. • The NRP functions as part of Food and Nutrition
Board (FNB) with National Informatics Centre (NIC)
providing technical, IT logistics and hosting support.
• It would also have linkages with important
institutions of repute such National Institute of
Nutrition (NIN), Nutrition Foundation of India (NFI)
and Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India
(BPNI) and others.

30. REFERENCE
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Food_Researc
h_Laboratory
• http://nipccd.nic.in/abt.htm
• http://nipccd.nic.in/nrp.htm