VIA MSME Forum organized a webinar on “Post COVID opportunities for the Food processing sector in Vidarbha Region” recently. Eminent speakers shared their views.
Vijay Sardana – Sr. Expert on Consumer-agri-food products, commodity markets, rural and bioeconomy said before installing a plant, we must ensure the market of the product. Government only provides us with policies & monetary support, so first of all the market needs to be understood. Focus of the Agro & Food Processing industry is in the wrong direction. 18.7 Trillion dollars of business has been done in the year 2019 in the furniture industry, we should adopt the concept of social forestry from Sweden, Scandinavia & Norway and One timber policy to be made. It will also provide us forest based produce. Commodity to be made as an intellectual property to earn better profit. Rubber, paper & paper products segment has huge opportunities and the Government has no policies for it. Orange peel has flavor and aroma which is in very huge demand. There is a 250 Billion dollars market for the flavoring industry, there should be a policy for the peel industry. Enterprises must come out of the commodity market and they should make expensive products. Nagpur is situated in the centre of the country; there are good opportunities for Home Pack Station & surface Station looking at the benefits of transportation.
Padmanand-Partner at Grant Thornton India LLP shared his thoughts and details about new projects for food processing sector in Vidarbha and various schemes of central & state governments.
Harshal Surange – Director & CEO of ACR Project Consultants Pvt. Ltd. Said the cold chain is a very big field and one of the most searched subjects. India has a major issue of food wastage production, and to overcome this problem, cold storages can play a big role in it. Cold Storage technologies are widely being used in various segments of the food processing sector. Cold Storage facility is a good option as an opportunity to work in the food processing sector said harshal surange.
Earlier, Girish Deodhar, Chairman – MSME Forum in his opening remarks & welcomed all eminent speakers present & Participants from Food Processing Sector of Vidarbha region. He said, from past few months we are going through a very tough phase due to COVID-19 pandemic. There is an anti China movement in the country, so in view of this, we have taken an initiative to understand how we can establish the import substitute & export oriented units here in Vidarbha region. Keeping in mind atma-nirbhar theme of our Hon. PM Narendra Modi. MSME Minister Hon. Nitin Gakari through numerous webinars appealed to our citizens that for strengthening our economy we should concentrate on setting up new industries under the following two categories Import substitute project i. e. setting up industries of those products which we were importing from China. Last year China did business with India worth about 100 US billion dollars. Export oriented projects i.e. setting up industries of those products which China was exporting to other countries of the world. This business in China last year was worth about 3200 US billion dollars. So the objective of this focused discussion is to understand what are the projects which can be established here in Vidarbha region to strengthen the Food processing sector.
Suresh Rathi, President – VIA in his welcome address said, this is a very important subject, COVID or no COVID, this sector will grow. Now time has come, we should look for new opportunities and surely it will bear fruits in times to come. We are lacking in terms of storage & transportation. Various new opportunities to be explored in the food processing sector, such as what are the new products can be developed also manufacturing of machines which are being imported from other countries. We are also planning to form a cluster & common facility centre in this sector. Population is world is growing so need of food product will also going to grow said Suresh Rathi
CA Yashwant Bhojwani, moderated the session and asked various questions related to subjects of webinar.
Dr. Suhas Buddhe Vice President – VIA He appreciated the insights shared by all the eminent speakers & proposed formal vote of thanks. Program was largely attended.
