Kolkata: Silver’s rally has left an unusual impact on India’s traditional mithai makers.
Prices of vark, the edible silver leaf used to garnish mithai, have doubled this year to around Rs 1,400 for 150 sheets, forcing confectionery makers to drop the shimmer from bestsellers like kaju katli and turn to pistachio and saffron toppings. Its demand, meanwhile, has dropped 25-30% from Rakshabandhan through the just-ended wedding season.
Silver has rallied from Rs 86,005 per kg on January 1 to Rs 1.92 lakh Tuesday, according to India Bullion & Jewellers Association data.
“In past six months, the upward price trajectory of silver has been very sharp, forcing us to double the price of silver vark. Many mithai makers, who used to buy silver vark for their sweets, are now using dry fruits instead of vark to make them attractive to the consumers,” said Arik Jain, managing director of Ahmedabad-based Jainam Silver Products, a silver vark manufacturer.
Vark is a fine filigree foil sheet of pure metal, usually silver, though sometimes gold is also used.
While silver vark is mostly used in North Indian sweets, mithai makers from other parts of the country also use them. Firoz Haider Naqvi, director-general of the Federation of Sweets and Namkeen Manufacturers, said consumers from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar prefer mithais with silver vark as they are perceived to be of higher quality.
Many mithai makers who use vark have increased prices of sweets by 5-10% after Diwali, when they realised that the silver rally is likely to continue. Some said they are refraining from increasing prices in fear of losing customers and are taking a hit on their profit margins.
“We cannot increase prices of sweets with silver vark and therefore our profit margins are getting squeezed. We are using dry fruits instead of silver vark. We do not know where the silver prices will shoot up,” said Bharat Agarwal, director of Shyam Sweets, which has a presence in Chawri Bazar, Ashok Vihar and Darya Ganj in Delhi.
Some are applying less vark on sweets. “Some mithai makers have stopped using manual ways to put silver vark on sweets and have automated it, which is also helping them to give a thinner layer of vark on mithais,” Naqvi said.
Affluent families, meanwhile, demand sweets with gold vark during festivals and weddings despite high prices. One-kg of mithai with gold vark ranges between Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000; a similar quantity of kaju katli with silver vark costs Rs 1,800-Rs 2,000 in Delhi and Mumbai.
