Products

Chuniding Food

The start

At Chuniding Food, we aim to be a social enterprise on a mission to preserve and promote the Bhutanese food culture.

We focus on the revival, preservation and innovation in Bhutanese food practices.

As a brainchild of the founder, Lt.Colonel Kesang Choedon (Retd.), the concept of promoting local and organic food has been worked on for a few years, and Chuniding Food finally materialized in November 2015.

It was the passion for promoting local food culture and the concern about degrading traditional and local food practices caused by rapid globalization, that sparked the journey of Chuniding Food.

While we place great value in preserving our ancient heritage, we also understand that culture is not stagnant and it needs to evolve with evolving times to support the wholesome development of our societies.

With changing lifestyles in these modern times, how we nourish our body with what we eat, the way we eat, and where we source our food from needs to be considered earnestly.

While we work on preserving our traditional cuisine, reviving long forgotten recipes and waning food practices, we also see the importance of innovation in the food practices so that it supports a healthy wholesome lifestyle in these modern times.

Chuniding Food started with 14 products in 2015 and now in 2017, we have expanded our range of products to over 150 varieties that can be bought off the shelf at our outlet in Thimphu city.

All our raw materials are sourced locally from across the country, including foraged materials from the pristine forests of Bhutan. We have our network of farmers and foragers who are saved the hardship of transporting their produce to the markets and are encouraged to grow organically.

In order to preserve the rich natural flavours and the nutritional value, we do not use any artificial flavouring/preservatives in our food products.

Emphasizing the need for waste reduction, as much as possible, every part of our raw materials are used often leading to innovative new products in the Chuniding Food line.

Conservation of the environment is an important aspect of our work, so we harvest rain-water during the monsoon season which is used in the production of most of our products.

Staff & Values

Understanding the hardship of unemployed women and mothers, majority of the Chuniding Food employees are women and young mothers, who are provided a conducive environment to earn a living with dignity.

The technological knowledge of production has been researched and developed through traditional knowledge and practices, including study tours to Japan, Thailand and India to learn the best practices in the region.

Although a small-scale enterprise, Chuniding Food incorporates all principles of our Royal Government’s policy to substitute import, increase export, use local products and to generate employment.

Deep-rooted connection to our ancient heritage, respect for the natural environment, understanding the need to innovate and adapt to modern lifestyles, and the wisdom of our grandmothers and their spiritual connection to the earth below and skies above must guide our day-to-day living. These are the driving forces behind Chuniding Food.