NEW DELHI, INDIA, April 13, 2003: In a growing number of middle-class homes in the cities, the ritual of people cooking painstakingly elaborate meals is increasingly a memory. “Ready-to-eat is the future of food, with the growing number of double-income nuclear families,” says celebrity chef Jiggs Kalra. When both partners go to work, it is so much simpler to have a ready-made packaged meal “which you just put into boiling water and serve,” he says. The business in India is only beginning to pick up now. Processed foods account for less than two percent of total food consumption in the country. ITC, a giant in the food industry, estimates the current size of the ready-to-eat food market at around US$6 to 10 million. “It’s convenience food,” says Monojit Chintey of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s agribusiness desk. There is growing acceptance for the genre, he says. “You just have to visit the local grocer to see the change.” Shop shelves are stacked with a variety of cans, sachets and retort pouches of one-minute foods, and there are chains of supermarkets that have a wide range of ready-to-eat items. There’s one aspect in India’s food business that the West does not have, mainly cheap labor. People can, and do, hire cooks because it costs little. However, companies are marketing the “high-class gourmet” aspect of their products to get past this.
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