A 52-year-old Pune based home-maker, Shubhangi Patil has been granted a patent by the Office of Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks, for her unique recipe of ragi (finger millet) walnut soup.

Her patented soup is free of preservative and artificial additives. It consists of ragi, walnut, edible gum and rock salt. It is a ready-to-eat formula. The preparation is similar to the regular soup packs available in the market.

The soup would be soon launched commercially with five variants by a food company based out of Pune. That company is also attempting to provide the soup packs to Indian Armed Forces as a part of their meals.

Patil told BusinessLine that the invention of the soup was out of necessity as her husband was recovering from an accident around 2013 which required a high protein diet. Doctors recommended eggs, lamb trotters soup and other meat sources but her husband is a vegetarian.

Patil’s passion is cooking and researching on various types of foods. Her study of walnuts and ragi led to the creation of ragi and walnut soup mix, which in spite being a fully vegetarian recipe is high in Omega-6 fatty acids and calcium.

“I bought and sourced walnuts from all over the world for making the soup. Even while visiting Dubai on a family trip other ladies were interested in buying gold jewellery but I bought Turkish walnuts. But I found walnuts from Anantnag in Jammu and Kashmir best suited for the recipe as they are less bitter and low in oil content,” Patil said.

Patent lawyer Ganesh Hingmire who hand-held the whole process of filing the patents for Patil said that you don’t have to be highly qualified to get a patent - all you need an original idea.

Hingmire said that use of walnuts from Kashmir will also provide additional employment to the local farmers.

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