Food processing has the potential to dramatically improve rural livelihoods by raising farm incomes through value addition in their agricultural produce, according to companies like MTR, Maiyas, ITC Foods and Griffith Labs.
“Due to its diverse agro-climatic conditions, India has a wide-ranging and large raw material base suitable for food processing industries. Presently, a very small percentage of food is processed into value-added products, So the scope, potential and opportunities are huge,” stated an expert from one of the companies.
According to G K Vasant Kumar, former special secretary, food processing and harvest technology, department of agriculture, Government of Karnataka, the food processing industry is on the threshold of demand-led growth in the country and within the state of Karnataka. The state boasts of specific supply strengths, giving it a comparative advantage to become one of the leading food processing hubs of the country.
He added, “With 10 agro-climatic zones and land topography highly suitable for agriculture, Karnataka is one of the most agriculturally-diverse states in India.”
Meanwhile, Sanjay Sharma, CEO, MTR Foods, told F&B News, ”The last year has been mixed for the packaged food industry. Consumer confidence took a beating last year due to recent events which led to pressure in category growth. The next year is going to be interesting for the industry with brands working hard to maintain, and in some cases regain, consumer trust.”
Adding further, he stated, “Rise in disposable income, increased household expenditure on food, increasing number of working women are all the usual suspects contributing to the growth in sector. Apart from these, we have also seen an increasing trend of consumers experimenting in different cuisines not just from other countries but also from states within India as well.”
Consumers today have less time, so while they want to experiment with cuisines and dishes they also want it to be given to them in highly convenient easy-to-use formats. This will lead to another major trend in the coming years – Innovation. Brands will rely heavily on innovation – product, packaging, manufacturing as well as marketing - to meet the on-the-go dynamic demands of the consumer. “We are looking at challenging but exciting times in the year ahead,” explained the MTR Foods chief.
According to Rakesh Somayya, associate VP, international sales, Maiyas Beverages and Foods Pvt. Ltd, the Indian food industry has no dearth of market opportunities on account of thriving domestic consumption and new avenues of foreign demand. Food processing is an important link between agriculture and industry. Scale of operations along with a fragmented supply chain is the major impediment in the path to speedy growth of food processing in India. Concentration at the level of production, processing and retailing can provide the much needed impetus for the sector. The Government of India has identified food processing sector as the sunrise sector. A number of initiatives are being put in place for promoting primary as well as secondary processing. For an unhindered growth it becomes important to address the demand and supply side constraints of food processing in India. Agriculture will keep on playing a vital role in the Indian economy and food processing will go a long way for providing opportunities for sustainable and profitable agriculture in time to come.
India produces 82 mm tonne of vegetables (10.9% of global production), and 47 mm tonne of fruits (8.4% of global production). However, the level of processing of fruits and vegetables in India is about 2%. This low level of processing is resulting in 35% wastage of total fruits and vegetable production of the country that accounts for approximately Rs 35,000 crore per annum.
Since 1976, significant increases in the installed capacity have been found, as the number of fruits and vegetables processing units have been increasing. This has gone up further after 1991. However, the level of capacity utilisation remains below 50% of total installed capacity. It may be because of the meager demand of processed fruits and vegetable.
Studies on cross-country consumption pattern show that consumption structure of consumers are changing with the increase in their income levels. They shift their consumption from normal food like cereals’ to high value food like fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, and processed food. In order to examine this in Indian context, kind of units, which have come up, include: fruit and vegetables – beverages, juices, concentrates, pulps, slices, frozen & dehydrated products, wine, potato wafers/chips etc. Fisheries – frozen and canned products mainly in fresh form meat and poultry – Frozen and packed mainly in fresh form, egg powder (only a couple of units. Milk and Dairy –Whole milk powder, Skimmed milk powder, Condensed milk, Ice cream, Butter and ghee, Grain and cereals – Flour, Bakeries, Biscuits, Starch, Glucose, Cornflakes, Malted foods, Vermicelli, Pasta foods, Beer and Malt extracts, Grain-based Alcohol Consumer Industry: Chocolates, Confectionery, Soft/Aerated Beverages/ Drinks.
According to Sujesh Govindan, director, R&D, projects & process engineering, Griffith Laboratories, the current trend in the food ingredients space is demand for natural ingredients used in flavours and additives. There is also need for backing every ingredients used with scientific information on the labels. This will increase job opportunities for food scientists to serve in quality assurance and quality control departments.
The business of fortified foods, which helps to combat malnutrition, is fast catching up. There are several foods fortified with micronutrients and iron. These include noodles with iron, iodine and vitamin A. Mass food fortification programmes add specific nutrients including vitamin A, iron, B vitamins, folic acid and zinc to commercially processed staples like wheat flour, condiments and cooking oil. Several agro processors have also gone ahead with voluntary food fortification like vegetable oil fortification with vitamin A and D3 and milk fortification with Vitamin A and D which suggested a strong commitment from the agro industry.
Technology advancement & skilling to fuel processing growth
FieldFresh Foods, the joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Del Monte Pacific, sees that the technology advancement and skilling will see the food sector well placed to make an impact in 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 F&B News.
He added, “In this regard, we see the existing and new food park infrastructure in the country having considerable relevance. Food parks play a big role for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with 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.”
Bellani stated, “From a FieldFresh Foods perspective, we have also committed to the government of Punjab to invest in 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 pointed out, “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.”
The CEO said, “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.”
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 chillies. “As part of the Make in India programme, we have doubled the capacity at the Hosur plant and set up a packhouse,” stated Bellani on a concluding note.
