Financial performance of fruit processing industry a study on selected units in west bengal

Abstract

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutrition support to the body. It is newlineusually of plant or animal origin. It is consumed directly or processed for temporary newlineuse or processed for future use. Food processing is the transformation of raw newlineingredients, by physical or chemical means, into food. Ministry of Food Processing newlineIndustry (MOFPI), government of India, classifies food processing industry into 6 (six) newlinesegments on the basis of the raw material, such as Fruits and Vegetables, Fisheries, newlineMeat and Poultry, Milk and Dairy, Grain and Cereals, Consumer Foods. newlineFruit processing was first started in an organized manner in India in 1857, mainly to newlinemake pickles and chutneys and canning of fruits was started in 1927. Western style newlinepreserved food products like sweet squashes and sarbats were manufactured and newlineintroduced in India in 1930s in Punjab by few Indians, educated in US (Randhawa, newline1985). From 1940 onwards the industry diversified the product mix and it started newlinemarketing canned fruits, jams, jellies, marmalades fruits juices etc. (Jose, 2011) newlineIndia ranks second in fruit production in the world after China. The important fruit newlineproducing states are Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, newlineTamilnadu, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal and Goa. In West Bengal newlinedominant fruit producing districts are North 24 Pgs, Jalpaiguri, Malda, Murshidabad, newlineDarjeeling, Nadia, Hoogly and South 24 Pgs. Considering abandoned availability of newlinefruits and export potentiality fruit processing industry has immense importance in newlineIndia. But in West Bengal besides few large and medium scale fruit processing units, newlinemost of the units belong to cottage or home based micro units. Many units are newlineinvolved in processing of multiple food items besides processing of fruits. As per data newlineof Department of FPI and H, Govt. of West Bengal, 557 numbers of fruit and vegetable newlineprocessing units were registered in West Bengal as on 31.03.2011 but as per newlineinformation of DIC (District Industry Centre) many units are not functional. newline