Ever eaten a laddoo at Tirupati? The one that comes from the Venkateswara temple? It's huge. And it's usually free (at the mandir). And now, it's copyrighted too! A geographical copyright. So it will be easier to tell the real one from the fakes. As the most sought-after 'prasadam' for lakhs of pilgrims who throng Tirumala, and just as Darjeeling tea, Madhubani paintings and Goa Feni, these laddus are now safer thanks to the Geographical Indication (GI) patent rights. Both types of laddus-small (174 gms) and large (720 gms) are now less prone to imitation!
So what is GI? Well, it's right to market a product after being tied to a definite geographical territory so that goods should be produced or processed or prepared and manufactured strictly in that territory. No way anyone's stealing this recipe!
Other famous GI items around the world include champagne and tequila; both are globally consumed in copious quantities! Not many know that their patenting was based on preventing others from exploiting decades long research and manufacturing from calling it their own. The GI status is intellectually copyrighted and provides legal protection and facilitates for action in cases of infringement.
For number nuts, around 1.5 lakh laddus are produced daily with annual revenue from sales at a whopping Rs.2 crores. Kitchen workers claim the use of about 5,000 kg of besan flour, over 10,000 kg sugar, 1,000 kg cashewnuts, 350 kg cardamom, about 500 kg ghee, 500 kg sugar candy and 750 kg of raisins go into the preparation of laddus everyday!
We say it's worth the GI!
