'Food processing sector to treble in coming years'

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