Enjoy jackfruit ice cream this summer in Kerala

Keralites can now enjoy a new flavour of ice cream -- jackfruit -- made completely from natural juice and without synthetic additives.

State-run Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Milma) launched the jackfruit ice cream as part of its diversification plan on making more milk products.

"This new ice cream made out of jackfruit has just hit the markets and been received well. Milma specialises in ice creams made out of natural juice and not from synthetic additives. Thus we are able to make the product without any change in flavour or texture," Kallada Ramesh, chairman of the Thiruvananthapuram Regional Cooperative Milk Producers Union, told reporters here on Saturday.

Believed to have originated in the southwestern rain forests of the country, the word jackfruit comes from the Portuguese word 'jaca', which in turn is derived from the Malayalam word 'chakka'.

The fruit also doubles up as a vegetable in its raw form.

"We have to diversify to remain in the market as selling milk alone is not enough. We are now entering into the field of organic vegetables. Here too, it would be entrusted to our own farmers who supply us milk. We will ask them to cultivate vegetables and we will do the marketing of these vegetables," Ramesh said.