FieldFresh Foods, the joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Del Monte Pacific, sees that technology advancement and skilling will ensure that the food sector makes an impact on the global markets.
“The industry at large and specifically from the food sector is upbeat that the Union government will provide a roadmap to accelerate manufacture, develop supply chain and warehousing which is expected to foster overall growth of the sector,” stated Yogesh Bellani, chief executive officer, Field Fresh Foods, while speaking to FnB News .
In this regard, we see the existing and new food park infrastructure in the country having considerable relevance. The food parks play a big role for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with their access to readily available facilities to start off production. It would enable these SMEs to move up the value chain and boost outsourcing capabilities to develop new products, according to him.
“From a FieldFresh Foods perspective, we have also committed to the government of Punjab to invest into the Food Park and are looking at such a facility to spur our future development. We are bullish and optimistic about the growth prospects ensuing from this sector, he said.
“We are confident, infrastructure and access to qualified workforce will catalyse growth and strengthen the food and beverage processing that would foster innovation in India. The industry does face talent concerns and this is where Skilling India for the food sector could create more jobs and access to trained workforce,” stated Bellani.
“As part of its roadmap to increase growth prospects, the nine-year-old FieldFresh is now pursuing backward integration to improve efficiency and cost savings. It has set up demonstration farms close to its R&D and manufacturing facility. It would enable building and expand its core competence and enable efficiency in supply chain management because our business revolves around the B2B and B2C platform,” said Bellani.
“The company’s widest assortment of Del Monte brand of pastas, ready-to-use sauces, Italian range of olives and its oils, ketchups besides packaged fresh and dried fruit range apart from ketchups are available in over 250 towns directly for the HoReCa sector. In general and modern retail, it has 95 per cent presence in top 50 cities in the country barring the central and eastern parts of India.”
The company is the largest exporter of baby corn and accounts for 23 per cent of the UK market share. Besides, it also supplies herbs, sugar snaps and snow peas to the EU. It has an Agriculture Centre for Excellence in Ludhiana, a product development centre at Karad in Maharashtra and a state-of-the art R&D and production facility at Hosur. It has roped in 5,000 farmers to undertake research on varieties of tomatoes and chilies . “As part of the Make in India programme, we have doubled the capacity at the Hosur plant and set up a packhouse,” said Bellani.
