What are the growth prospects of food ingredients as a specialty industrial sector?
It is good because the packaged food industry is growing. This growth will drive the food ingredients market, and the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) needs to be active too. I would like to note that there is no good food ingredients event in India like in chemicals and pharmaceuticals segment. What percentage of ingredient production comes from domestic market? Most of the ingredients are sourced domestically – almost 90 per cent. And there is no chance for imports to rise in the near future too, as domestic starch industry is heavily protected by the government. Because of this, Indian customers will not get the lower price products. They have to come up and compete with the best in the world. India is yet to have a fully developed regulatory framework to control the ingredient market. How far the governmental policies support this sector? The food industry is not growing, as it should be just because of no proper regulatory framework. I feel nobody understands the PFA Act well
