Project report for Ready To Eat foods

Ready to Eat food took its own sweet time to enter the Indian market. It is a category of convenience food where the preparation time is extremely short and convenient, to where the product is prepared in advance and can be eaten as sold depending upon the requirement of the users and the weather conditions. These foods meet the specific needs of convenience, nutritional adequacy, shelf stability, storage, distribution to the centers and have become very popular. Convenience food, or tertiary processed food, is food that is commercially prepared to optimise ease of consumption. Convenience foods can include products such as candy; beverages such as soft drinks, juices and milk; fast food; nuts, fruits and vegetables in fresh or preserved states; processed meats and cheeses; and canned products such as soups and pasta dishes. Additional convenience foods include frozen pizza, chips such as potato chips, pretzels, and cookies. Ready-to-eat foods are a group of food products that are pre-cleaned, precooked, mostly packaged and ready for consumption without prior preparation or cooking. The most popular ready-to-eat items include preparations of paneer, chana masala, rajma masala, pav bhaji, etc. Rise in the demand for ready-to-eat food products has created the interest among many companies to enter this space which is likely to contribute to the growth of the market in the coming years. Furthermore, innovation in products offerings, sustainable packaging, preference of single serving frozen products, aggressive marketing & promotional strategies would steer growth in the market during forecast period.

The Indian ready-to-eat food market stood at INR 19,143 Crores in 2019 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 16% during 2020-2026 to reach INR 47,095 Crores by 2023. Anticipated growth in the market can be attributed to rising urbanization, increasing disposable income of middle-class population and changing taste preferences of Indian consumers. Moreover, the growing demand for quick food and presence of freshness and high nutritional value in these foods is further aiding growth of the Indian ready-to-eat food market. The demand for ready-to-eat food products is recording high growth in metros where a lot of working people don't get enough time to cook proper meals. Additionally, longer shelf life and easy availability of ready-to-eat food products is further pushing their demand across the country.

The ready to eat market in India is showing remarkable growth owing to the growing income & consumption levels of the Indian consumers. In addition to this, rapid urbanization is also augmenting the demand for ready to eat products. Urban people suffer from time crunch due to their busy work schedules and this is leading to increased dependence on ready to eat foods. This is further aided with the penetration and availability of a wide variety of ready to eat products in different packaging formats at various retail points. All these factors are indicating towards the bright future of the Indian ready to eat market in the coming years.