Punjab's farmers just got a shelf in Paris. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann inaugurated the MARKFED stall at SIAL Paris, one of the world's premier international food exhibitions, on Sunday, October 18, 2026, and simultaneously launched two new canned products under the cooperative's consumer brand 'SOHNA' — marking a concrete step in the state's bid to convert farm produce into globally traded goods.

Posting in Punjabi and English on X, Mann declared it 'a matter of great pride for the farmers and cooperative institutions of Punjab,' announcing that canned 'Chickpeas in Brine' (Chitte Chhole) and 'Red Kidney Beans in Brine' (Rajmah) are now on the international market. His stated goal: push Punjab's pure and high-quality products into global markets to raise farmer incomes and build an identity for Punjabi produce worldwide. He closed with the rallying cry 'Inquilab Zindabad!' — 'Long live the revolution!'

MARKFED and SOHNA: the cooperative machinery behind the launch

MARKFED — the Punjab State Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation — has long been the institutional backbone of the state's agricultural marketing, handling procurement, processing, and the push toward branded packaged foods. The SOHNA brand is its consumer-facing identity, designed to carry Punjabi food products beyond bulk grain exports into the value-added processed-foods segment, both domestically and abroad.

SIAL Paris is one of the largest food-industry trade fairs in the world, drawing buyers, distributors, and retail chains from across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. A stall there is not ceremonial — it is a direct pipeline to export orders and distribution partnerships that can take months to build through conventional trade routes.

Why canned pulses, and why now

Punjab is India's leading wheat and rice producer, but those staple crops have delivered shrinking margins for farmers over successive decades. The pivot to value-added processing — cleaning, brining, canning, and branding pulses like chickpeas and kidney beans — is a deliberate effort to capture more of the supply chain's value before the product leaves the farm gate.

Canned chickpeas and kidney beans are high-demand pantry staples in European and North American markets, where convenience food consumption is structurally strong. By launching at SIAL rather than through a quiet domestic listing, the Mann government is explicitly targeting that premium export premium — and using the cooperative structure to ensure gains flow back to the growers, not just private intermediaries.

Punjab's cooperatives have participated in international food fairs since the early 2000s, but the packaging and branding of pulse products under a single recognisable label represents a more aggressive export-positioning play than earlier commodity-focused participation.

The farmer-income arithmetic

The political logic is direct. Mann's Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab has staked significant credibility on farmer welfare since taking office in 2022. Raising incomes through export diversification — rather than solely through procurement-price negotiations with the Centre — is a strategy that keeps the state government in the driver's seat. Every kilogram of chickpeas sold as a branded canned product in a Paris supermarket generates more value than the same kilogram sold as raw commodity at a mandi.

Whether the SIAL launch translates into sustained export volumes will depend on distribution deals struck in the coming weeks and months — that data is yet to emerge. But the platform choice signals intent at scale.

Punjab's pulse farmers are watching Paris. If the orders follow the inauguration, the SOHNA stall at SIAL 2026 could mark the moment a state cooperative graduated from a domestic brand to a global one.