New Delhi: India’s export of final consumer food products such as ready to eat (RTE), ready to cook (RTC) and ready to serve (RTS) under the APEDA basket has registered a significant growth in the last one decade. With the Ministry of Commerce and Industry laying thrust on value addition of products for exports, the food products under the RTE category have registered an compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent in the last one decade and the share of RTE in APEDA export has increased from 2.1 per cent to 5 per cent during the same period.

The export of products under RTE, RTC and RTS segment have registered a CAGR of 10.4 per cent from 2011-12 to 2020-21. India exported more than $ 2.14 billion worth of final food products in 2020-21. Since final food products are time saving and readily available, the demand for food items under the categories of RTE, RTC and RTS has increased manifold in recent years. The export of products under RTE, RTC and RTS categories rose by more than 23 per cent to $ 1011 million in April – October (2021-22) as compared to $ 823 million reported in April– October (2020-21).

According to the latest Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics data, India exported final food products, which include RTE, RTC and RTS, worth $ 5,438 million in the last three financial three years (2018-19 and 2020-2021). In 2018-2019, India recorded RTE exports of $ 766 million, which rose to $ 825 million in 2019-20 and $ 1043 million in 2020-21. Meanwhile, the RTC food products recorded an export of $ 473 million in 2018-19, $ 368 million in 2019-20 and $ 560 million in 2020-21.

The growth rate of RTE in 2020-21 against previous year was 26 per cent while growth in biscuits and confectionery category recorded at 28.87 per cent, jaggery at 48.18 per cent, breakfast cereals at 4.24 per cent, Indian sweets and snacks at 29.75 per cent. Notably more than 56 per cent of RTE food products were exported to top 10 countries in 2020-21.

The USA is the top importing country in four categories of RTE products such as biscuits and confectionery (USD 79.54 million), breakfast cereals (USD 5.33 million), Indian sweets and snacks (USD 99.7 million), ‘Pan Masala’ and betal nuts (USD 5.95 million) while the remaining two products under RTE are significantly imported by Malaysia and Nepal. Malaysia imported Jaggery worth of $ 5.09 million and Nepal imported wafers worth of $ 3.5 million in 2020-21. /BI/