(Continued from Part 1)

The session on Game changing Innovations from India focussed at sharing the Game Changing initiatives that have been witnessed in India and help address the Food system issues as well as discuss possible interventions on Policy & Governance, Research & Innovation, Finance, empowerment of women and youth, consumer engagement and partnerships, which can help unlock further progress of such initiatives.

These Game changing innovations, include the -  Farmer Producer organization initiative that strengthens ‘farmer linkages’ with markets,  large scale staple food fortification, reduction of environment externalities of Agriculture, the integration of the value chain to reduce post harvest losses and food waste and the EAT Right initiative which adopts ‘whole of the government’ approach since it brings together food-related mandates of the agriculture, health, environment and other ministries.

Dr  G R Chintala, Chairman - National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) mentioned  that they were supporting 4000 FPO’s , facilitating inputs and market linkages to enhance incomes . The recently announced credit guarantee scheme for FPO’s would enable them to become effective business entities .

Ms Inoshi Sharma, Director, Food Safety and Standards Authority India - spoke about the EAT right India initiative and how the focus is shifting on sustainable consumption and Healthy diets. She highlighted that FSSAI has adopted a 360 degree leveraging the whole of government and society approach to drive social and behavioural change across stakeholders.

Mr Tarun Vij, Country Director, GAIN India stated that – GAIN India is focusing on Deepening the fortification quality agenda. He further added that  Fortification must become an integral strategy within the larger nutrition agenda, and not a stand-alone intervention and mandatory fortification will help in catalysing additional reach, allow for better organized pre-mix supply, surface the need for better regulatory monitoring and reporting, strengthen the testing laboratory infrastructure and ensure reliability of fortified production data that is currently reported voluntarily.

Ms Seema Arora, Deputy Director General, CII - ITC Centre for Excellence for Sustainable Development (CESD), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) spoke about the  Agriculture Crop residue management system which CII started in 2016 as a participatory approach to support farmers, and change  community behaviours.

Private sector initiatives such as work done by Ninjacart on the fruit and vegetable supply chain  and ITC e choupal ‘s work with 4 million farmers  were also showcased at the Game changing innovations session from India.

The last session for the day was India centric and will focussed on Emerging Trends in the Food processing industry and aimed at discussing key market trends in the food processing as well as shifts in subsectors some of which are seeing rapid growth. Trends such as – Direct to consumer models that will be preferred by the consumers given the concern for safety and benefit of convenience; Healthier choices and mindful eating determining food product innovations and product formulations and transformation of the Product portfolios in line with the consumer preferences; Innovations in Ingredients for food and health industries. Consolidations in terms of structural shifts, merger, acquisitions,  new areas of investment; Personalized nutrition creating a niche market for the Health & Wellness products;  and Sustainability initiatives on food systems that provides healthy food to people and creates sustainable environmental, economic and social systems, will form the focus of this session. The panel was moderated by Mr Sudhir Sitapati, Co-chairman, CII National Committee on Food Processing Industries & Executive Director (Foods & Refreshments) Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL ) and other co panellists were Mr Joydeep Bhattacharya, Partner,Bain & Company; Ms Richa Arora, President Packaged Foods, TATA Consumer Products Limited; Mr Anshu Budhraja, CEO; Amway India, Mr Anurag Jain, Business Director, South Asia; DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences.

23 November 2020

New Delhi