Industrial Visit, Dept of Biotechnology

The students(27) and staff members(3) of the Department of Biotechnology, Vinayaka Missions Kirupanandha Variyar Engineering College, Salem visited Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore on 10th October 2019. The DFRL 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. It is organized under the life sciences directorate of DRDO (Research and Development Organization). The present director of DFRL is Dr.AD Semwal. By 2.30 PM the staff members and students entered the DFRL premises and were guided by three staff members to watch a presentation about their History, Vision, Mission and core competence. Furthermore, they briefed on the areas of work and the issues related to food, mainly for Indian Armed Forces and how DFRL plays a significant role through their contributions. The presentation ended showing their numerous awards for various innovative projects in food sciences. Then the staffmembers and students were taken to an exhibition in the DFRL premises where they displayed their various food products like chappathi, fruit bars, meat briyani etc. They explained about the process by which a shelf life of a food can be increased so that they can be used by the Indian Armed Forces at their decisive time. They also explained their areas of works that includes the production and supply of processed foods like mutton and chicken soup, yoghurt etc to the armed forces and other bodies for National Missions, preservation and packaging methods for long distance transportation of perishable products and evaluation of nutritional requirements of troops deployed under different climatic conditions. The session was ended by 4.30 PM. On the second day (11th October 2019) of the Industrial Visit, the students and staff members of the Department of Biotechnology visited the Sandal Wood Oil factory division, Mysore. They explained about the importance of sandal wood, their cultivation methods and the process of extracting oil from sandalwood to produce varied productsusing it.The sandalwood goes through a process of splitting, chipping and disintegration by machines where the final product sandalwood oil is separated. The wood waste was used to make camphor and incense sticks. It was set up with an aim to explore resources in Mysore and produce the best natural sandalwood oil.