Food processing sector to treble in coming years: Harsimrat Kaur Badal

India's food processing industry is expected to treble in the coming years on the back of higher economic growth and government initiatives like 100 per cent FDI in marketing of food items, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Tuesday.

At present, the size of India's food processing industry is about Rs 1.5 lakh crore.

"Food processing industry will treble in the coming years... Retailers, processors and manufacturers will be the three key drivers for facilitating the growth story," Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said at an industry event.

"Indian food market is ready for innovative food products, processes and investments," Badal was quoted as saying in a statement.

Badal said her ministry is facilitating ease of doing business and creating investor friendly policies and schemes to give a boost to the sector.

She said the interest expressed by the overseas industry were a testimony to the fact that the world was looking at the Indian food industry as the food factory to the globe.

Badal said that the food processing ministry proposes to organise the World Food Summit in 2017, that shall act as a single consolidated platform for investors, technology solution providers, processors, manufacturers and all other relevant national and international stakeholders.

Speaking at the event, Food Processing Secretary Avinash K Srivastava said the ministry aims at achieving fivefold jump in the Gross Value Addition (GVA) of food processing industry to the GVA of agriculture, which would also call for a higher allocation of financial resources.

He said the industry should look at ethical sourcing while developing its supplier chain, and integrating the backward linkages in to the supply chain.

Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said the food processing has been identified as one of the 10 key sectors under Make in India initiative as it presents an attractive capital and technology investment opportunity for domestic and foreign investors.

He said the government's decision to permit 100 per cent FDI in trading, including through e-commerce, in respect of food products manufactured or produced in India is expected to provide a major impetus to investments, employment and job creation in the food processing sector.

CII Vice President Rakesh Bharti Mittal said the opening up of FDI in the marketing of food products will facilitate seamless integration of the supply chain.

"This will offer the advantage of improving price realisation for the farmers by reducing intermediaries and strengthening supply chain through its forward and backward linkages, in addition to reducing wastages of the perishables," he said.

Krish Iyer, President & CEO, Walmart India suggested that the policy of FDI in marketing of food products may also include a certain component of non-food items, as part of the overall product portfolio of the retailers.