Panaji : After bagging a Geographical Indication, Goa’s ‘Feni’ is now getting ready to stand out among country liquors and to be tagged as ‘heritage brew’, a senior official said here on Friday.
“Goa government has already initiated a process to tag Feni as heritage brew outside the state.
With this, Feni will get an opening in markets outside Goa,” Mac Vaz, President, Goa Cashew Feni Distillers and Bottlers Association told PTI ahead of a conference of stakeholders scheduled to be held here on Saturday.
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar will inaugurate the meeting. “Because of the negativity attached to country liquor, people perceive this (Feni) too as one of those country liquors. Now we want to give it a different tag and classification,” Vaz said.
He said we need to realize that Feni is the ‘Kohinoor’ among alcoholic beverages. It attained the GI mark in 2010.
After receiving the GI mark, the perception of Feni has gone up globally, he said.
“We Indians look down at our own assets, only when white men acknowledge it then we wake up and realize the essence of our assets,” Vaz commented.
“India has a USP globally, anything that comes from India has a natural pull,” he said.
For the makers of this liquor, getting GI sign has helped financially.
Vaz said post GI mark, sales have also soared four times. Goa has 28 units which bottle Feni across the state.
Talking about the stakeholders’ meet, Vaz said, “there was a need for celebrating Goan spirit as a proud alcoholic beverage from India. Feni is produced exclusively in Goa and is classified as a “country liquor”, and is therefore not allowed to be sold outside the state of Goa.–PTI
