Food processing potential

Higher scale will have multiple benefits

The food processing industry, even though in its infancy, has emerged as the biggest employer of labour in the manufacturing sector. The numbers presented by the government, in reply to a question in Parliament last week, showed that over 2 million people were engaged in the food processing units in 2018-19 (Annual Survey of Industries data). This relegates the textiles sector, employing about 1.6 million people, to the second position. These figures, notably, pertain only to employment in the organised sector’s food processing plants. The employment in unorganised or informal agro-processing and preservation activities is in addition to that. 

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