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The summary of interview held by Times India Journalist with Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate regarding CPF andIndian Food Industry the Way Forward....  

1. Could you give us an overview of the unique offering from CPF ?

As you know Centre for Processed Foods is almost 23 years old organisation offering various kinds of technical consultancy services to food processing industries and entrepreneurs Due to its excellent track record and dedicated work in the food industry over long years, today CPF emerged as one of the important and leading Consulting organisation in the Indian Food Business with equal popularity in overseas food industries also.

CPF to mention have gained excellent networking strengths and in house technical expertise and have demonstrated of late offering various kinds of end to end solutions in many domains of this vast food business and this is the strength paved the way for its reputation in the food business as a leading service provider. Today CPF functions more strongly in the industry under the leadership of Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate who took over the organisation three years back.

Today Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate, A Post graduate in food science specializing in dairy science & with MBA to his credit works with immense passion in the food business and has made the organisation transform into a full time “entrepreneur & food industry friendly organisation”. CPF under the able guidance of Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate handles several projects on a turnkey basis and also assignments of varied nature starting from project report preparation to commercializing the technologies and setting up of the projects, product development, offering assistance in implementation and certification of various management and technical operating systems and manpower assistance etc.,

CPF boasts itself as one point contact place to get end to end solutions in all aspects of food business be it project related, technical, human resources and marketing, CPF will deliver the goods practically, innovatively yet in most professional & scientific manner.

2. Which of these offerings are the growth drivers for the company

I feel that strong reasons for sustenance and growth of CPF are due to its Very Practical Way of Working with industries and entrepreneurs by understanding their requirements and offering it precisely.

Another great strength is that offering services in all the domains of food industry which made entrepreneurs and all kinds of food industries approaching CPF with their requirements and CPF demonstrated all the times that it offered the techno commercial assistances on most professional lines. Apart from the above, CPF has the capabilities to understand the concept of product or process from an entrepreneur or industry and crystallize it into a prototype and scale it up to a industry through its in house product development facility - be it the product or process is a traditional or continental.

CPFs role as a project consultant is unique and have offered such assistances on a turnkey basis setting up from a very small scale to large high tech food industries in India and abroad.

Quick response recruitment services of CPF is also a unique service being offered to the industry through its very large food professionals database have emerged as a blessing in disguise to the food industry and also to CPF. The entire selection process and efforts needed to be put in have been squeezed down and reliable, screened competitive, candidates are offered from CPF.

Real transformation has come into CPF after Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate taking over the organisation and transforming it into a real time commercial organisation with focus on offering technical and project consultancy services to food and allied industries.

3. How the company fared so far ?

During the last 3-4 years CPF have made very confident & long strides and grown over 100% and today CPF is consolidating itself to embrace newer challenges in its profession by signing MoUs with leading other service providers within India and companies abroad so as to source and also deliver services for projects across the globe where Indian foods & fusion foods are becoming popular. Within India it has created an excellent networking among the industry over the years and we keep receiving requirements more than what we can handle in our centre and today Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate is confident that his passion to this industry will be kept on a high throttle and offer his expertise to make Indian Food Industry a powerful and eye raising in the coming years.

4. Could you highlight some of the latest installations at your lab and what kind of investments went in for the same ?

Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate after taking over the organisation have steered its services to augur all the needs of ever growing challenges of food industry and entrepreneurs. Keeping this in mind he housed the offices in a spacious, multi tasking premises from where he operates all the activities and installed a mini but good product development lab to carryout trials of various food products both dry and wet on lab scale and then now a unique pilot scale facility to handle most of the food products is been created in the same place to scale up the product development works from lab scale to pilot scale. CPF also have a mini but appropriate laboratory facility to test the samples for chemical and sensory evaluations, the said office space can also be utilized for various kinds of training programs for the food professionals and entrepreneurs. CPF also have two technical assistance and one administrative and accounts assistant who are well trained to handle all the tasks under the guidance of Mr. Chetan L. Hanchate. All this happening at an investment of Rs.25 lakhs when things come to a good shape.

5. What according to you are some of the visible trends in the food and beverage sector ?

As mentioned earlier processed foods and beverage sector will grow in leaps and bounds in the coming years and Indian food business will become most attractive sector for investments largely in small and medium scale and not withstanding large scale also but only through large players which are finger countable. I am sure that food will be most talked industry all around and cautious and careful investments in this sector will definitely yield great returns on a long run in all the sections of food processing. To name a few sectors with good riders will be ready to drink both regular and functional drinks sector, convenience foods sector which will emerge as dominant sector embracing most of the products, functional foods would be another sector showing signs of raphid growth. Backward integrated fish, marine, poultry and meat industry offering hygienic meat through their chain shops across the nation would be another leading business proposition. Finally to mention I strongly believe that anything and everything from both traditional to continental foods, packed hygienically and sold professionally with validate nutritional benefits would definitely attract Indian and customers abroad in this globalised, open ended economy.

6. As a consultant in the space, how do you view the future growth prospects of the sector ?

I see as a consultant engaged with almost all kinds of food industry segments; term Indian food industry as a mammoth industry, sun risen industry, with full potential to grow. I see food industry growing at much faster pace than 5 years back and is attractive lots of investments in all its related sections like raw materials suppliers, post harvest handling infrastructure, packaging materials, machinery mfrs, production units, supply chain, marketing, advertisement and etc. I feel that said industry will be the only industry emerging as most promising and everlasting industry compared to all other industry in India and elsewhere and will contribute the largest chunk for GDP for the nation.

Our consumers both in semi urban and urban areas don’t realize that their life is totally caught up with processed foods in a day and still they ask what is processed foods – to clarify, for example edible oil used in each household, salt used by every one, milk consumed, tea powder, atta, maida, rice been eaten every day and more importantly we cannot ignore water supplied through our municipal water purification systems; I term all these products as processed foods supplied from food factories of some kind. All these products have become inevitable and have influenced our day to day lives leaving aside the extent of its processing gone into it but technically everything is processed and packed. I am only mentioning about the processed foods which needs to be further processed in our day today life and if you look at the penetration of fully processed and packed foods like ready to eat, ready to drink, ready to cook etc in our day to day life is huge and few examples are haldirams snacks, chocolates, bakery products, alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks, ready to use spices, blends of it, pickles, frozen foods etc.

To be frank I always mention that a small baby to old aged person even in Indian context cannot escape from the grips of using processed foods in his or her day today life. Still many of our consumers have a wrong notion that processed foods means only fully processed and packed foods which they don’t know it is a small part of the entire processed foods business in India unlike in other countries. We still want to cook and fry our day today foods by using semi processed foods which are delivered to our houses neatly packed.

7. What according to you is the total size of the food processing market in the country and the business opportunities for entrepreneurs in the sector ?

Opportunities are unlimited – keeping in mind the heritage foods and understanding its science and commercialsing them for manufacturing will only give immense opportunities in our food processing industry. Added to it new hybrid foods, continental foods, foods consumed elsewhere also can be manufactured for Indian markets which is the latest trend. Fusion foods is a silent jargon which is making foods of different communities within a nation, region, across the nations which will emerge as one of the biggest markets for innovative products and I feel that this will become the mantra for many food companies and collaborations would happen across nations to combine the concept of healthy eating to live better. When trade / business between countries / states increases the influence of food also creeps in and fusion foods challenges will get into the food industry.

In the coming decade processed and packed food will consumed with “health” attached to it, it means enhanced nutritional values, quantity nutrition it offers and safety of foods becomes paramount importance among the markets so food business houses should take care while processing and selling; they should build appropriate nutritional values into foods to make it ‘more healthy’ without change in taste, flavour and texture of that food. No more junk snacking, time pass snacking, eating to fill the bellies, instead it will be eating for health or good living, if some one opting for fresh foods – it shall be really fresh and have retained all the farms nutritional values in it. Industry will have to demonstrate it to the customers by some means that they have taken care to reach that farm freshness to consumers.

India have never promoted their foods which has a history behind it; will have to now open their wings to reach out to far east and west and show them what our foods have in it. I am sure that Indian foods have the real ‘Zing thing’ in it which others don’t have – for that matter all our foods are designed, developed with utmost precision incorporating several natural ingredients carrying proactive medicinal values which I feel except Chinese have that in practice which they have already globalised it in a distorted fashion so I see the opportunity for our food factories to commercialize our heritage foods, produce them in masses and promote them within our country and also in other countries so that concept of eating goes well with the “health” factor which I discussed above.

We from centre for processed foods have given priority area for commercializing Indian traditional foods into large scale manufacturing and have demonstrated it by brining in many products into food business only with a reason that when others can come to our country and promote “Almonds as California Almonds when we have ours” “German or Australian Oats when we have excellent range of millets in our country” “Spanish Saffron when we have our Saffron” “ Italians promoting their pasta while we consume tones of vermicelli based dishes” – this shows we are lagging behind promoting our foods to them instead. Time and speed is the only important factor we reversing all of them, if we do it fast they earn or we loose, I am confident that while we growing in all sectors food sector also will win in the coming years to make our nation a ‘Food Factory’.

I am sure with these growth riders the Indian food industry should grow three or more times bigger than what it is today and it will become major revenue spinner in the coming years not only within the country but also in far nations.

8. What are the key issues that need to be taken care of in the sector ?

When entire food industry is poised to grow as a major sector it will have to look into few issues relating to the strict compliance of food regulatory standards for meeting its domestic and international requirements, this has become prime importance as the food business have become global and consumers are expecting more than quality the safety of the foods what they are consuming so keeping in this mind Govt. of India under the aegis of Ministry of food Processing and other Ministries have embarked on setting new standards namely FSSAI and the same will be enacted and enforced to all the food handlers, processors and marketing agencies. The FSSAI have been designed and will be implemented to meet not only domestic markets but also it aligns itself to the international market requirements so that by default our food industry will comply with global needs.

Another key issue is that to food production houses have to embrace these standards voluntarily and show their responsibility in adopting and practicing them to make this industry a vibrant industry instead of waiting some one to knock their doors to mention and say here is the new standards you need to comply and practice and our industry reactively embracing them which will not result anywhere.

Thirdly, the professionalism should be practiced among food handlers across the food chain in a scientific manner so that food grown reaches to the consumers be it fresh or value added products at right price which is a big challenge for our food industry which needs to be cracked with improved infrastructure both at growing areas, processing and marketing of foods. Lots of investment I expect to happen for building infrastructure by PPP models which is the only way forward to deliver the goods just in time for this industry.

Our food scientists and technologists are very innovative and have immense skills to commercialize the technologies with their rich diversity of different foods consumed across nation will give us that immense opportunity to comeout with never ending innovative proven products which can be tossed to the world in the coming years & this can happen only if the industry adopts appropriate technological intervention with skilled technologists. Marketing is a big game but it will be like that all the time and food industry should develop and commercialize products of importance which not only nation focused but globally acceptable so that marketing efforts will ease to some extent.

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