Elachi Online, a new integrated portal for cardamom trade, has started functioning on a pilot basis at the primary trade centre at Bodinayakanur in Tamil Nadu last week by trading around 65 tonnes.

KCPMC Ltd, a leading name in the cardamom industry, has launched the portal with the support of the Gurugram-based Intello Labs, a startup formed by alumni of IIT Mumbai.

The new portal has multiple extra facilities, which are highly beneficial for both sellers and buyers of cardamom with a host of new features such as grades, liter weight and colour grades. Technologically advanced imaging machines and algorithms that define the nature of the cardamom are also included in the portal. The information compiled will improve accuracy, leading to the trade of more volumes on the portal.

These data features are hitherto unavailable in the cardamom industry, which are still dependent on the conventional method such as human grading, examining physical samples and analysing, which may impact the accuracy or have limitations on volumes, said Jojo George, Managing Director, KCPMC.

“We are introducing a new system with the support of Artificial Intelligence where three main ingredients of cardamom trade such as colour, litter weight and grading in the available lots can be technologically ascertained. These are the three critical parameters for cardamom trade on which the price discovery is based upon. With more players joining the portal, the nature of cardamom trade will change, thereby making it easier and more transparent among stakeholders”, he said.

The portal will soon go multi-locational, enabling the trading of the same lots of cardamom from different locations simultaneously. This would be highly beneficial to traders, especially in the pandemic times where people are finding difficulties travelling to areas of trade/auctions in Kerala or Tamil Nadu.

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