Tip of the Foodberg

India's food processing industry, as we see it today, is not even the tip of the proverbial iceberg (foodberg, if you may). There is a whole lot of mass beneath the waters, waiting to be discovered.

Even trillions of dollars of investment in this industry will not satiate the palates of a billion and thirty, counting the strong populace of India, with a voracious appetite for all things called food. After all, India is renowned to be a foodie's paradise for a reason.

For millenniums, from the beginning of our cuisine culture and history, all the savories and foods were created at home. Created, I daresay, as it was a labor of love and maternal affection. Curd, chaach, pickles, pinni, and namkeens et al. A house was quite literally known by the mouthwatering offerings it concocted and churned.

Many a days, we would wake up to the pungent but comforting aroma of mustard oil fumes in preparation for various pickles or to the sound of hot milk being churned in an earthen pot by our mothers and grandmothers, to convert it into various delectable downstream products. Nostalgic, isn't it?

Very slowly but gradually, the processing of these domestic proprietary products migrated from homes, first to our friendly neighborhood halwais and then partially to the organized (read branded) sector. A major part of our food processing (70 % by some reliable estimate) is still in the domain of the unorganized, unbranded sector.

Who in their wildest nightmare, at that time, would have seen themselves buying their curds, buttermilk, pickles, mathis, and numerous other home proprietary products, from their neighborhood mom-and-pop stores. Oh, my food! Our dear departed grandmothers must be turning restlessly in their graves. May their souls rest in peace.

India's diverse culture gave birth to its equally diverse culinary preparations, from Ladakh to Kanyakumari and Gujrat to Arunachal. We have the indisputable distinction of being the most diverse country on planet earth. Food is at the core of our diversity.

Over the last few years, our agricultural produce had an 8 % CAGR. Impressive, isn't it? Not I, if you consider the huge depletion in the nutritional values of our fruits and vegetables.

Agricultural produce contributes 20 % to our economy. Add to it 16 % of produce which is wasted due to excess production and lack of storing & transportation. That comes to a robust and irretrievable 3 % loss to our economy. And that's a raw product we are referring to, with no value addition. And if we calculate the notional value addition on the processing of the wasted farm produce only, it would be a mind-boggling contribution to our economy and the well-being of our farmers. It would probably have the biggest slice of a States and National GDP pie-chart.

Our focus would be on ready-to-eat or RTE vegetable products only, the most lucrative and never-ending business segment. To put a perspective to it, India is processing less than 10 % of its agricultural produce.

Our disposable income is on the increase. And our first priority spend is on food. Such is the variety and diversity in our culinary culture that one lifetime is not enough to savor all the offerings. With double-income families, cooking is the most arduous task. In general, cooking is a monotonous and painful task, therefore undesirable to most housemakers, whether working or not. Mushrooming cloud kitchens and robustly increasing home delivery food business is proof enough. But this model is not sustainable for most of the existing household clients. The reasons are dual; of course, the high cost of food (at least 3 x compared to home-cooked) is a deterrent, as is the taste, oily and spicy. Isn't this greasy taste the reason we crave to eat out in the first place, infrequently, though? But again, we are talking of sustenance of consumption. Once a week or fortnight is enough to satisfy our taste buds. And if we can find a way to increase consumption by a few percentage points, imagine the business opportunity it will create with hundreds of millions of consumers to feed.

It is only possible to provide consumers with an option of long shelf life RTE product, available at neighborhood grocery stores, tastes like home-cooked food, and equitable price. Isn't this a mouthwatering business opportunity? Now. Let's see how this golden opportunity can be cultivated and harvested.

Let's me take you on a journey toward an amazing discovery that will provide you with a context, make you appreciate the issues and potential, and introduce you to the formidable submerged mass awaiting revelation.

Various condiments and spices which give hearty flavors to our food are highly heat-sensitive in nature, so are the nutritional values contained in the vegetables. The retort is the only technology available that provides extended shelf life to food. Retort to the uninitiated is exposing food, raw or processed, to very high temperature, about 180 deg C, for about 20 minutes. This terribly compromises on the taste and already depleted nutrition, thereby resulting in barely edible food. This existing technology is the bane of the processed food industry and a major impediment to its growth. After all, our spices and condiments are sensitive to thermal vagaries. The net result is that the processed food thus obtained is an assault on our sense of taste. And it doesn't help the cause that it outprices the home-cooked food.

The answer lies in size and strategy. In this industry, size does matter. We need corporations for brevity and convenience; we call them FBOs (food Business Operators) with deep pockets and deeper persistence. The FBOs should be strategically located in the vicinity of the agricultural belts. They should have the financial and psychological wherewithal to take clusters of farmers under their wings. FBOs can either own land or adopt a contract farming model. Provide them with quality fertilizer and dissuade them from using high-yield variety hybrid seeds.

Bringing huge swathes of land under controlled farming would ensure high nutrition and great taste of the produce and low price due to viable volumes. This will be highly beneficial for the farmers as they won't have to face twin vagaries of failed monsoon and over-dependency on much-derided and exploitive intermediaries (or aartis in agriculture market parlance). They will be able to connect directly with their customers (read FBOs). This is mid-way on our quest, and more miles remain to traverse.

Now we come to my favorite part - Technology. As I mentioned previously, the existing technology is inappropriate for providing extended shelf life to our sensitive food. To reach the desired end, we need a greenfield development of processing and packaging technology. This will be possible with close collaboration by all stakeholders, FBOs, R & D, Process equipment maker, and Packaging material supplier. And there is no dearth of such technology developers, the only ingredient required for projects' palatability is our (FBOs) liberal time and money, read persistence, and deep pockets.

The desirable outcome would help us overcome all the impediments to its mass acceptability and consumption mentioned afore, taste and price comparable to home-cooked food, repeatability, healthy nutritional content. There would be attractive and sustainable compensation for farmers with gainful consumption of most of the vegetables left to rot. And the variety of delicious lip-smacking dishes available at stone's throw.

With time we will have delectable food, replete with nutrition that won't dent our health and pockets—a win-win situation for all. Farmers are happy, FBOs are happy, consumers are happy.

I have always referred to FBO in the plural form as the magnificent potential of this business has room for multiple big players.

Bon appétit!

Vivek Batra is chief executive officer and president of Amrit Corp (unit Amrit Food).

Photo attribution - <a href='https://www.freepik.com/photos/background'>Background photo created by valeria_aksakova - www.freepik.com</a>