Food Parks are comprehensive industrial estates for food processing units where the industries would have provision of common facilities like cold storage, cold chain, effluent treatment plant, warehousing power connection, water facilities, sewerage etc. The creation of these common infrastructures would benefit individual units particularly the small and medium scale units, because these are expensive to be set up by any single individual unit. Therefore a common park with all the infrastructures would help in the growth of the food processing industry reducing wastage. The envisaged processing units that can be set up in the Mega Food Parks will be location specific and dependent on available raw materials. Possible Processing Units in the Park could be IQF (International Quality Federation) Frozen Foods, Fruits & Vegetables Processing, Mango/Tomato/ Banana/ Pineapple/ Guava Processing Pulp/Puree/Concentrates, Aseptic Juices, Nectars, Drinks, Tetrapack Aseptic Packaging Plant, Vacuum Drying, Candies, Papain Extraction, Enzymes & Oleoresins distillation, Instant Foods -Ready to cook Vada, dosa, Idly, Cutlets etc, Specialty Foods-Energy drink mix, Wellness foods, Ready Meals Sterilized Fruits, Vegetables, Cereals Confectionery Plant-Chocolates -Cocoa processing Spices/Tastemakers Development unit-Seasonings Natural Colour Extracts etc. MAJOR FEATURES OF MEGA FOOD PARKS SCHEME Vision 2015 of Ministry of Food Processing Industries aims to raise the processing of perishables in the country from existing 6 % to 20 %, value addition from 20 % to 35 % and the share in global food trade from 1.5 % to 3 % by year 2015. By creating post harvest handling infrastructure PFHPL will also help reduce post harvest losses of perishables from current level of 30% to 35% valued approximately Rs. 50,000 Crores per annum. To realize the Vision 2015, Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has pledged support under the Mega Food Park Scheme (MFPS). Each Mega Food Park (MFP) will be subsidized with an amount of Rs. 50 Cr on a milestone & progress achievement basis. The ministry of food processing industries proposes to establish 30 (thirty) Mega food parks in the country during 11th plan with the following objectives: • Provide state of the art infrastructure for food processing in the country on a pre identified cluster basis. • Ensure value addition of agricultural commodities. • Establish a sustainable raw material supply chain for each cluster. • Facilitate induction of latest technology. • Foster interagency linkages for pooling of resources for activities complementary to food processing. • Quality assurance through better process control and capacity building. MARKET SCENARIO The Indian food market is set to more than double by 2025. The market size for the food consumption category in India is expected to grow US$ 344 billion in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 4.1 per cent. In India, the food processing industry is one of the largest in terms of production, consumption and export prospects. Mega Food Parks Scheme (MFPS) is a programme of the Ministry of Food Processing Industry, Government of India, introduced in the eleventh five year plan. These mega food parks are implemented in many states such as Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and planning to implement in Orissa, Punjab and other states also. The primary objective of the MFPS is to provide adequate infrastructure facilities for food processing along with the value chain from the farm to market. It will include creation of infrastructure near the farm, transportation, logistics and centralized processing centers. The scheme will be demand driven, pre-marketed and would facilitate food processing units to meet environmental, safety and social standards. The outcome will be increased realization for farmers, creation of high quality rural processing, reduction in wastage, capacity building of the producers, and creation of efficient supply chain along with the significant direct and indirect employment generation.
