The food processing business in India is on a roll, thanks to the retail revolution.

Working for a well-known MNC, Mrs. Arora hardly finds any time to prepare delicious dishes for her little daughter, not to mention her husband as well, who prefers home food to eating out. The fact that she doesn't like the tedious job of searching for vegetables at the adjacent sabji mandi (vegetable market) makes it all the more difficult for her to keep her kid happy. Thanks to the retail supermarkets like the neighborhood FoodWorld and newly launched Reliance Fresh, her job has become easier. The large air-conditioned supermarkets of big corporate houses not only assemble vegetable markets and kirana stores but also provide the excellent option of choosing from seemingly endless varieties ranging from products like pickles to chutneys, juices to ready-to-cook curry powders, and concentrated curries to "puri-bhaji" or "dosa-vada".

This is ushering in a new era where corporates don't hesitate to source fresh vegetables from the muddy fields of remote villages and process those to take a direct route to the Indian Tawa. While a number of firms like Dabur Foods, Godrej Industries, Hindustan Lever Limited, and ITC have already established their foothold in the processed food marketwhich is growing at over 12% a year and attracts 15 crore middle-class individuals across the country, of which 60% are below 35 yearsa larger number are just waiting to storm rural India. These corporates, who have entered the processed food industry, use their retail outlets for promoting and selling their products. Industry experts like Raman Mangalorkar, Principal of A T Kearney, feel that with more private players in the fray, "It will put retailers in a commanding position vis-à-vis manufacturers and brands. It will also see a lot of retail chains getting into contract manufacturing."

The Analyst Magazine, Retail Supermarkets, Hindustan Lever Limited, Bharti Enterprises, Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, GCMMF, Direct Marketing, IMIS Packaged Food System, Agri-food Business, Food Industry, Corporate World, Indian Government, Consumer Durables, Global Economy, Modern Technology, Communication Systems .