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40% food wastage due to lack of infrastructure in post-harvest mgmt: AIFPA
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Wednesday, 21 November, 2012, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Abhitash Singh, Mumbai
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fiogf49gjkf0d India's food processing industry is estimated to be worth nearly Rs 5 lakh crore market and presumed to be growing at the rate of 11 per cent per annum, but according to K L Radhakrishnan, senior official, All India Food Processors' Association (AIFPA), the lack of proper infrastructure in post-harvest management is responsible for the wastage of food, estimated to be about 40 per cent.
He said the Indian food processing industry is the fifth-largest industry in the country. The demand is also increasing day by day and the reason for it is that a majority of the population lives in the urban areas. The number of working women is increasing. People are more interested in ready-to-cook (RTC) and ready-to-eat (RTE) food. The need for processed foods is growing at a rapid pace.
Radhakrishnan said, “India is the second- largest producer of fruit and vegetables all over the world. We are wasting a lot of fruit and vegetables because we don't have a cooling and storage system in place. The boilage will be more if we do not come up with proper solutions. The main reason for this wastage is that the grading and packaging in our country is not up to the mark. We don't have well-developed cold chain and refrigerated van with different chambers and temperatures.”
He added, “Our industry has many drawbacks and lacunae. We need cold storage with multi-chambers. Due to the lack of infrastructure and facilities the food wastage is valued at Rs 50,000 crore. FDI and investment in infrastructure by big players can reduce the loss and wastage taking place in the food processing industry. If we bring down the wastage customers will get fruit and vegetables at cheaper rate and even farmers will be benefited. The size of domestic market is increasing. Since large numbers of Indian family are increasing all across the globe the demand for processed food is increasing.”
Food inflation during the last few months has been going up which is hitting badly not only the common consumers but also the food processing industry in the country. For quite some time, market prices of fruits and vegetables which are one of the important categories used for processing have skyrocketed. Even the prices of other ingredients require for processing like cereals, sugar, edible oils, meat, and poultry have gone up steeply. As a result, the production cost of processed food and their retail prices will go up considerably,” said Radhakrishnan.
"We have a very good opportunity to export the processed food all over the globe. Government should encourage more investment through public-private partnership (PPP) basis, and in this way we can fill the gap and our food processing industry will be a success story in the days to come," concluded Radhakrishnan.
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