Narayana Peesapaty, a former researcher at the International Water Management Institute of Hyderabad, has created an innovative edible cutlery, mainly made out of sorghum.

The basic idea behind the innovation - replace plastic spoons – struck Narayana during a flight, upon observing fellow passengers scooping out food with khakra pieces instead of easily bendable plastic spoons. Narayana started with manufacturing lunch spoons with self-made machinery and experimenting with several grains and millets. He has tried out soup spoons, chopsticks, dessert spoons, and forks and is now contemplating expanding his range of products to small dip cups, stirrers and prick sticks.

Narayana has experimented with not only different materials and shapes for the cutlery, but also tried various marketing techniques including door-to-door sales. He found social media to be a great boon, which helped publicise his innovation and also helped him raise funds far in excess of his targets. He now plans to increase utilisation of his indigenous machine, followed by making multiple machines, including new fabrications for few other shapes of cutlery by 2017.