Retail food industry to grow by 400 per cent

The Indian food retail industry is expected to grow by over 400 per cent in the next five years and share of global trade in the sector has been projected to double by 2015, a government official said.

"Food in grocery sector is about $ 154 billion, which is 77 per cent of total retail sales... two-third of the food is in retail grocery, and the organised Indian food retail is just three per cent at $ 7 billion, which is expected to grow by 400 per cent in next five years," Ministry of Food Processing Joint Secretary Ajit Kumar said.

Highlighting the estimated growth projection targets set by the Government, Kumar said the retail food industry is going to be at $ 20 billion by 2010 against the $ 7 billion now.

"We will have tremendous growth in the food processing sector by 2015, increasing the level of processing of perishable from 6 per cent to 20 per cent, value addition, which is only 20 per cent now, to 35 per cent and share of our global food trade of 1.5 per cent to double by 3 per cent by 2015," Kumar said.

According to Kumar, the government has taken several steps for promotion of food processing industry, including tax holidays and permission for repatriation of profits.

"The 100 per cent EOUs in SEZ can retain 50 per cent of the foreign exchange reciepts in foreign currency accounts, these are huge incentives for them," Kumar said.