The Food Processing Industry in India: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

India’s agricultural base is quite strong but wastage is very high and processing of food products is very low. The country’s processing sector is small and processing of food to consumable standards in India has reached only 10% recently. India’s share in exports of processed food in World trade has remained at about 1.5 percent or $3.2 billion. This paper examines trends and status of the food processing industry, identifies and discusses constraints/problems slowing down its growth. Though there are many promising dynamics which support the potential for growth of this industry, there are still some significant constraints which, if not addressed sooner, can impede the growth prospects of the Food Processing Industry in India.