The e-commerce market is booming in India, this boom can be very well witnessed with the availability of unusual item listed in virtual shelves. A product which we are talking about is ‘Cow Dung Patties’. Until October 2015 this item was only available in rural areas of India, but now it is also available in urban shelves of country.
These patties are prepared by mixing cow dung and hey and is dried in sun, mainly prepared by women folks in rural areas. The patties are used to fuel fires, heating and religious rituals. These same patties are now widely available on all major online retailers, including Amazon, ebay and Shopclues.
Madhavi Kochar, spokesperson, Amazon says “Cow dung cakes have been listed by multiple sellers on our platform since October and we have received several customer orders since then.” She also added that “orders mostly come from urban parts, where Cow Dung Patties are difficult to find.”
Cow dung cakes have been used for centuries for fires, whether for heating, cooking or religion rituals. Across rural areas, piles of drying cow dung are ubiquitous.
According to Radhika Agarwal of ShopClues said “demand for cow dung cakes spiked during Diwali season, as people do a lot of Pujas in their houses and workplaces, so there is a lot of demand for the product.”
“Increasingly, in the cold weather, people are keeping themselves warm by lighting fires” at outdoor events, she said, adding that people who grew up in rural areas find the peaty smell of dung fires pleasant.
“It reminds them of the old days,” she said.
Online retailers said people were also buying the dung cakes to light fires for ritual ceremonies to mark the beginning of the new year and for the winter festival known as Lohri.
The cakes are sold in packages that contain two to eight pieces weighing 200 grams each. Prices range from 100 to 400 rupees per package.
Dung cakes are also used as organic manure, and some sellers are marketing them for use in kitchen gardens.
