The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) is an Indian defence laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Located in

Mysore Mysore ( ), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of Mysore district and Mysore division. As the traditional seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, the city functioned as the capital of the ...

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

, it 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 The Indian Armed Forces are the armed forces, military forces of the India, Republic of India. It consists of three professional uniformed services: the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, and the Indian Air Force.—— Additionally, the Indian Ar ...

. DFRL is organised under the Life Sciences Directorate of DRDO. The present director of DFRL is Dr. A D Semwal.

History

"The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) came into being on 28th December 1961 under the aegis of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Ministry of Defence,

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

, at Mysore especially to cater to the varied food challenges of the

Indian Army The Indian Army (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

, Airforce and other paramilitary forces." In 2015, DRFL distributed ready-to-eat food in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

's flooded areas.

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 *Development of various

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most millets belong to the tribe Paniceae. Millets are important crops in the Semi-arid climate, ...

products. *Development of biodegradable water bottles. The Laboratory has testing facilities and analytical instruments such as GC, GCMS, GLC, HPLC, Nanodrop spectrophotometer, Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer, Lovibond Tintometer, etc. Animal house enables nutritional and safety evaluation of a variety of foods. Some of the recent additions to the processing equipments include, High pressure processing, Pulsed electric field processing, Khoa making machine, controlled atmosphere system, integrated soya paneer plant, blast freezer and plate freezer lyophilizer, polymer twin screw extruders. Food Scanner, Texturometer, Hydrosorb, Hybridization oven, Image analyser, Thermogravimetric Analyser, Differential scanning colorimeter, Dynamic mechanical analyser, Alveoconsisto graph, Cell counter, Gradient thermal cycler,

Scanning electron microscope A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is a type of electron microscope that produces images of a sample by scanning the surface with a focused beam of electrons. The electrons interact with atoms in the sample, producing various signals that ...

, FPHLC, Gel Documentation system, IR Spectroscope and Atomic Force microscope. The Laboratory has developed some analytical test kits for evaluation of deteriorative changes in food such as Meat Testing Kit, Test Kit for E.coli detection, Presumptive Test Kit for Coliform Detection, Acidity Testing Paper Strip, Pesticide detection kit.

Projects and products

Technologies for civilian use

Many of the DFRL foods, born out of innovative state-of-the-art technologies, lend themselves eminently suitable to industrial scale commercial exploitation by enterprising entrepreneurs of different genre. 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 chapatis *Instant/Quick cooking foods *Puff and serve chapatis *Short term preserved chapatis *Scrambled egg mix *Combo pack ration *Supplementary compo pack ration *Cold stock drying technology *Instant choley mix technology *Minimally processed pre-cut vegetables *Ethylene absorbed pad/scrubber development *IM/HT fruits

References

External links