Food processing appears to be emerging as a hot sector for investment, if the preliminary meetings recently held across districts as a run-up to the ‘Emerging Kerala’ investor meet to be held in Kochi in September are any indication.
According to officials at the various district industrial centres across the state in several districts projects connected withfood processing were in the range of at least 40 per cent.
The meeting had been convened by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation with entrepreneurs district-wise.
Besides food processing, the other sector that had entrepreneur interest was tourism. The projects proposed were mainly in the small and medium enterprise sector and included a wide range of products from pickles to ready-to-eat stuff.
The KSIDC executive director, Mr TP Thomas Kutty, said thatfood processing would certainly get priority.
A separate sectoral session on food processing would be there at during the Emerging Kerala meet. Special exclusive food processing zones would be set up within industrial growth centres in the state. A theme park for food processing was also under consideration, he added.
The state has been in the forefront of seafood processing. Incidentally, the nearly Rs 1,300-crore annual sea food processing is just around 15-20 per cent of the installed capacity of the industry.
The situation is much better in the spice processing sector with leading players and the state way ahead in spice oils and oleoresins.
While efforts have been on to make the state the hub for spice and seafood processing, the interest shown by entrepreneurs in other food processingitems should help make the state be a hub for processing most of the food items, say leaders in the industry who expect the Emerging Kerala meet to be a platform for giving it the much-needed push.