BANGALORE: With Bangaloreans preferring to celebrate a "healthy" Deepavali this year, there has been a major shift from the calorie-loaded traditional sweets to nuts and dry fruits and diet chocolates.

Although kaju katli, kaju barfi, kaju badamika, rasagolla, rasmalai and assorted sweets are still the favourite delicacies of most people, nuts and dry fruits are sought after. Fitness is not a fashion, but a necessity is the slogan now.

To retain the traditional customer base and cater for the health-conscious, sweet stalls here have come out with innovative concepts like "Deepavali basket". This basket, which comes in various sizes and attractive designs, is a blend of assorted sweets, dry fruits, chocolates and `diyas' or candles of different shapes and a few firecrackers. The customers can order specific additions (gifts) to the basket. The baskets cost between Rs. 880 and Rs. 1,100. Attention is paid to packaging and designing these baskets. Major chains of sweet stalls have invested substantially in this by setting up in-house design concept teams.

Most of them have come out with their own `signature' and `brand' designs. A leading chain of sweet stall has come out with a specific design for a particular software industry. "Although we have stopped taking orders, we are still receiving last minute bulk orders. Our in-house design concept team has put in a seven-month effort to evolve 25 designs by using `bandhini' fabric, fancy laces and artificial flowers," Rahul Dadu, proprietor of Anand Sweets, said.

"We have created a regular customer base over the years. With most of our customers preferring other kinds of gifts to sweets, we are doing our best to provide them all that they need in one package," B. Shankar Singh of Kanti Sweets said.

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