Food
retailing to touch $22 b
in two years
TIMES
NEWS NETWORK [ TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2003 05:58:19 AM ]
NEW
DELHI: Organised food retailing in India is all set to touch a figure
of Rs 1,00,000 crore or $22 billion in the next two years, according
to the Union minister for state for food processing N T Shanmugam.
Speaking
at Foodpro 2003, a conference on ‘India As The Food Factory To The World’,
organised by CII in the capital, he said that while at present India’s
share in the global trade is less than 1%, considering its strength
in the processed food sector, the share percentage is bound to grow.
The
minister said that the entire retail market is growing at the rate of
20% per annum. Outlining India’s strengths in the food-processing sector
he said that it is supported by round-the-year supply of raw material
due to varied agro-climatic conditions, trained and cheap manpower and
is already the largest producer of milk in the world.
He
also said that India has the largest livestock population in the world,
is the second largest producer of food in the world, second largest
producer of fruit and vegetable in the world, fifth largest producer
of eggs and the sixth largest producer of fish in the world.
He
said that India’s food retailing is valued at Rs 4,00,000 crore out
of which a major portion is handled by unorganised retailers and the
organised sector constitutes a mere Rs 20,000 crore segment which is
expected to jump in the next couple of years.
To
translate the potential into reality he stressed on the importance of
contract farming which demands the industry to extend support to the
farmers in terms of supply of inputs and advice on good agricultural
practices. The minister also pointed out that the criticality of establishing
essential physical infrastructure like cold chain facilities, storage,
testing laboratories and major processing facilities. Food processing
as a sector ranks fifth in terms of its contribution to India’s GDP
and employs 18% of the country’s industrial and labour force. The estimated
turnover of the industry is to the tune of Rs 1,44,000 crore.
