Not just for foodies

Food and beverages are an integral part of any consumer-demand story. Imagine starting your day without your tea or coffee or your evening tea without chai-biscuit. The food-and-beverages industry has much more to offer and includes staples, cereals, baked stuff, health beverages, snacks, chocolates, processed foods and dairy products, among others. India is a huge food market, even by world standards. It is the largest milk and buffalo-meat producer in the world; the second largest in eggs, goat meat, fruits and vegetables; and the third largest in broiler meat. The food-processing industry constituted 14 per cent of India's GDP through manufacturing. It is at $258 billion in FY15 and is expected to grow to $482 billion by 2020 (source: IBEF). The Indian food-processing industry has two peculiar features. The first is that it is dominated by the unorganised sector, which has corned 42 per cent of the market to itself. Small-scale industries have taken another 33 per cent of the industry, leaving the organised sector with only 25 pe