ITC, PepsiCo, Patanjali to pump in Rs 68,000 crore to Indian food sector

NEW DELHI: Top global conglomerates announced their commitment to invest a cumulative Rs 68,000 crore into the Indian food processing and agriculture sectors, including a Rs 10,000 crore investment from ITC, Rs 13,300 crore from PepsiCo and Rs 11,000 crore from Coca-Cola. The announcements were part of the 13 Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Ministry of Food Processing Industries and top companies in the sector.

PepsiCo announced that it would set up a food and beverage plant that would entail an investment of Rs 13,300 crore —this amount would be funnelled along with its partners over the next five years, it said.
Rival Coca-Cola will also be setting up a new facility in which it plans to invest Rs 11,000 crore.

According to the company’s statement, the facility will be for juice bottling infrastructure and fruit processing plants and equipment. Other major announcements include FMCG major Patanjali, which inked an MoU to invest Rs 10,000 crore in the sector and multi-sector conglomerate ITC, which is also planning to invest Rs 10,000 crore. In ITC’s case, the investment will go into setting up 20 integrated food processing and logistics facilities across the country.

Commenting on India’s potential in food and agri sector, ITC Ltd CEO and Executive Director Sanjiv Puri said, “With a population of 1.3 billion, India’s consumption market is projected to triple to $4 trillion by 2025 with the bulk of expenditure going into food products.”Besides these firms, the others that signed MoUs include Amazon, UAE’s Sharaf Group, YES Bank and US-based chocolate and confectionery firm Hershey, which said it would invest $50 million over five years.