1) Food processing and preservation has come a long way from early methods like pickling and drying to today's packaged and processed foods that can stay fresh for months without refrigeration. 2) In India, food processing is estimated to be a $121-130 billion industry, but only 2% of fruits and vegetables are processed compared to 65% in the US. 3) Ready-to-eat foods are growing in popularity due to urbanization and increasing incomes, but are still largely exported and need to establish themselves more firmly in the domestic Indian market, where they face competition from restaurant deliveries.

1. 48 | Progressive Grocer | Ahead of What’s Next | June 2015
Ready to Eat/Cook
M
ore than 200 years ago, France
instituted a 12,000 francs (around
Rs.1.4 lakh today) prize for anyone
who could find a way to preserve
food. The purpose was military
— soldiers required an assured supply of food and
nutrition to win wars in distant territories. In 1810, 15
years after the prize was announced, Nicolas Appert
found a way by cooking food in a glass jar and sealing it
with a cork. But Appert, a chef, didn’t know the reason
why the food he canned stayed fresh for months.
From grandmother’s pickles and salted and
sun-dried fish to the milk that comes in tetrapacks
and stays fresh for months without refrigeration,
packaged and processed food has come a long way,
meeting the modern day demand for hassle-free
instant food. Even fresh vegetables like green peas
or cauliflower, once available only in the winter,
are now available round the year, if only at a
higher price.
In India, food processing is estimated to be a
$121-130 billion (around Rs.7.5-8 trillion) industry,
Thanks to the rapid strides in food processing and packaging technology,
the ready-to-eat food category is witnessing a surge in consumer popularity and
acceptance. However, the category is largely export-driven as it is yet to establish
a firm footing in the Indian retail market. What are the factors holding back its
potential and what is its future outlook?
By P. Rajan Mathews
Ready to Eat/Cook
Breakaway Star:
Burning Bright?

2. June 2015 | Ahead of What’s Next | Progressive Grocer | 49
Ready to Eat/Cook
driven by the dairy sector (35%) and marine
and poultry (32%), according to a report by the
Confederation of Indian Industry. Also, in India,
only 2% of fruits and vegetables are processed as
against 65% in the US.
However, off-season consumption of fresh fruits
and vegetables is rising — the exotic lettuce available
during the Delhi summer most likely comes from
the hills of Ooty in Tamil Nadu, the beans and
capsicums from Himachal Pradesh, and the shiny
apples likely travel continents from the US, without
losing their sheen or juiciness.
Once such food processing technologies are
developed, it is the retort processed foods that
don’t need rehydration or preparation and may be
consumed straight from the pouch, with or without
pre-warming, relying upon the necessity of the users
and the weather. These foods meet the particular
wants of convenience, organic process adequacy,
ambient storage and distribution to the centers.
Shelf stability has made this extremely successful
and most suited to Indian cuisines. Hence a number
of tasty Indian dishes in retort pouches enable
consumers to enjoy their favourite foods such as sooji
halwa, upma, chicken curry etc. The use of retorting
technology has thus made the sale of “Ready-to-Eat”
foodstuff commercially viable, and in vogue with
contemporary food styles.
The pioneer in the development of RTE in India
has been the Defence Food Research Laboratory
(DFRL), Mysore, which was established on 28th
December 1961 under the Defence Research and
Development Organisation (DRDO) to fulfill
the needs of varied foods for Indian Army, Navy,
Air force and paramilitary forces. Their aim is to
design and engineer light weight convenient packed
food, with longer shelf-life under varying climatic
conditions. Using the self-developed technologies,
DRFL has produced many ready-to-eat, quick to
cook instant foods with a longer shelf-life. Some
of them are long keeping chappaties (shelf-life 6
months), high protein snacks (shelf-life 9 months),
spiced potato parathas (6 months), fruit bars (9
months), mutton pickle (6 months), stabilised
chikki (1 year).
Today, retort processing is the most acceptable
form of food preservation. These are ready to
eat food products that require just warming in
a microwave oven or water bath before eating.
Packaging of this food should withstand thermal
processing. Retort pouch is the flexible, laminated
food package, which is light on weight. It maintains
the shelf-life, texture and nutritive value of frozen
food. During war, soldiers can easily carry these
packages. So they are very popular.
The selection of packing material of retort
pouches is very important. It should have high
melting point, physical strength, protect against
light degradation, moisture changes, microbial
invasion and oxygen ingress. It should resist
penetration of fats, oils and other food components.
Packing material should not contaminate the
food inside. Japan and European countries use a
multilayer polyester with 7-20 microns thickness
aluminium foil and 75 microns thickness
polypropylene for retort pouches. But they are very
expensive for our country. DFRL, by its research,
tried polypropylene (PP) and co-extruded material
of polypropylene-nylon-polypropylene (PP-Nylon-
PP). This packaging structure is now successfully
used in the packaging of meat, vegetable curries,
rice with meat and vegetables, sweet halwa, beans in
sauce, etc.
The ready-to-eat category was commercially
first introduced to the country in 1987, but suffered
a slow beginning with consumers preferring
traditional cooking. During this period and till
the late Nineties, Tasty Bites was the only brand
of RTE available in the Indian market. Due to a
lack of acceptance, Tasty Bites had to be withdrawn
In India, food
processing is
estimated to
be a $121-130
billion (around
Rs.7.5-8 trillion)
industry, driven
by the dairy
sector (35%)
and marine and
poultry (32%).
But only 2%
of fruits and
vegetables are
processed as
against 65% in
the US

3. 50 | Progressive Grocer | Ahead of What’s Next | June 2015
Ready to Eat/Cook
from the Indian markets and is now available only
in export markets. By the turn of the millennium,
and with the advent of new technologies to improve
the shelf life of ready-to-eat products, alongside a
growth in storage and distribution centres and life
style changes, the segment gained momentum.
With the development of retort technology, and
increased differentiation among ready-to-eat players,
the heat-and-eat segment broke away to become a
market in its own right.
The RTE / heat-and-eat market is currently
valued at Rs. 240 crore and has been growing at a
rate of 18% over the last three years. Over the next
five years, it will reach 22% per annum as a result
of rapid urbanisation, increasing disposable income
and expected improvement in retail infrastructure,
touching over Rs. 640 crore by 2019.
RTE foods are currently dominated by ITC,
MTR Foods, Kohinoor Foods, Gits, Mother’s
Recipe and Tasty Bite Eatables.
ITC and MTR together contribute to just under
half of the market share, while the other players
make up 45% of the total production of heat-and-eat
food. Other players in the category include ADF
Foods, Priya Foods and Heinz, who are relatively
new entrants in the market with limited product
lines, and have a regional presence.
The category is largely export-driven as it is yet to
establish a firm footing in the Indian retail market.
However, domestic markets constitute 40% of the
total revenues of heat-and-eat products. Sales mostly
occur in urban areas, especially in Tier I cities,
where retail infrastructure is significantly developed.
Even though retort processing is the best and
most acceptable form of food preservation for Indian
cuisine as it has no preservatives, yet the acceptance
levels in the Indian market range from very poor to
average. Today, RTE is bought only by single men,
working single women and working couples and that
too for use in times of emergency, where they do not
want to cook or when they have unexpected guests
and visitors. It is seldom bought by families with
children even when both parents are working. It is a
known fact that when families do not cook food at
home, they mostly eat out.
Today, with most food service outlets having
their own free delivery and the growing food
delivery channels and websites for home delivery
of restaurant food, families resort to ordering of
restaurant food at home when they are not cooking.
Hence RTE has to compete primarily with the
free home-delivered restaurant food in terms of
freshness, taste and value for money.
The average Indian consumer has the following
misconceptions about RTE food, which the industry
needs to address:
• The most surprising misconception about RTE is
that the Indian consumer is not prepared for the
product and hence most of the sales have been in
the export market.
• The housewife, till date, was not willing to accept
a completely prepared product to feed the family
due to apprehensions of it reducing her role as the
family’s provider.
• RTE foods contain preservatives.
• Not nutritional in comparison to fresh food.
The RTE / heat-
and-eat market
is currently
valued at
Rs. 240 crore
and has been
growing at a
rate of 18% over
the last three
years. Over the
next five years,
it will reach 22%
per annum as a
result of rapid
urbanisation,
increasing
disposable
income and
expected
improvement
in retail
infrastructure,
touching over
Rs. 640 crore by
2019
PaoloBona/Shutterstock.com

4. 52 | Progressive Grocer | Ahead of What’s Next | June 2015
Ready to Eat/Cook
P. Rajan Mathews is V.P - Sales & Marketing,
Desai Brothers Ltd - Food Division ( Mother’s
Recipe ). The author can be reached on his
Email : rajanmathews@gmail.com.
• RTE does not have enough value for money.
• Most RTE is routine food such as dal, sambhar,
palak, etc, and is not a novelty.
• Some novelty products introduced by ITC were
priced very high.
• Availability is limited majorly to modern format
stores
• The penetration of RTE till date has been very
low in general grocery stores and households.
Social changes driving the RTE trend in India
The RTE food category has a tremendous growth
opportunity in the near future due to:
• Growing number of nuclear families. In the
Federal Home Ministry’s final figures of the first
phase of Census 2011, known as House listing
and Housing Census in New Delhi, the data
states that India is now overwhelmingly made up
of nuclear families — a dramatic change from just
a generation ago, where joint families were the
norm. Seventy per cent of the households consist
of only one couple.
• Increased urbanisation.
• There is an increase in the population of Indian
women, who have neither the time nor the
knowledge to cook traditional meals on a regular
basis.
• Indians have become more experimental with
their food and drink choices, as there is a need for
variety.
• Growing youth population.
• Significant rise in the number of working women
– 34% households have working women; 49 lakh
households in the top 10 cities constitute 50%
of the total working women.
• Growing practice of singles living away from
home for education or work.
• MRP of RTE ( value proposition of RTE ):
Today a single serve pack costs Rs 65 to
Rs 75, whereas the same dish to be ordered from
a nearby quality restaurant costs around Rs 130.
Few years back, people would be least interested
in stocking up RTE at home as they could just
walk across the road, find a restaurant and order
meals. However, now that people work till late
at night at office and return home at a time
when restaurants are closed, RTE seems to be
the best option.
• Change in Mindset : From a mindset, where
home-cooked and fresh food was preferred, and
housewives insisted on making everything from
snacks to multi-course meals in-house, today it
has become commonplace to seek convenience
and variety, using the vast menu of ready-to-eat
foods available.
• 44% Indians admitted to not having much time to
cook, while 23% felt ready meals were affordable.
(Source; Euromonitor, January 2013)
• Food as convenience and novelty : The variety
of ready to cook and ready to eat food is
growing, thus helping the housewife in her
quest for novelty.
Thus, the growth in the working woman
segment, increasing work and study commitments,
declining culinary skills, the rising need for
convenience, and surging disposable incomes, along
with clever and innovative marketing, have led to a
higher demand for heat-and-eat products. PG
Today,
RTE has to
compete
primarily
with the
free home-
delivered
restaurant
food in terms
of freshness,
taste and
value for
money
Type of
Outlets
%
Chemist 0%
Grocers 39%
Pan Plus 1%
Food Stores 10%
Modern Format
Stores
51%
Total Number of Outlets for RTE 28561 (Source: Nielsen Data)
% Penetration of RTE Category
in ‘A’ Category Outlets
13%
(Assumption: Universe of
Outlets is 2,22,330)
Total Number of RTE units sold 6319200 (Source: Nielsen Data)
% Penetration of RTE in Sec A1,
A2 Households per month
2%
(Source: IRS Data for A1, A2
households townwise)