Packaged foods industry gets government relief
The ministry of food processing on Thursday put out an advisory to all chief secretaries of states to permit manufacturing, transport, distribution and retail of packaged foods and beverages in what is a major relief to the firms.
Many of these players have had to suspend production and distribution of products because of the lockdown and confusion in what constitutes essential goods, which have been exempted by the central government.
Pushpa Subrahmanyam, secretary for food processing industry department, said on Thursday that in understanding food, the definition of “food” would be as per the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 under which any packaged or loose food article would be defined as a food product.
As a result, manufacturing, transportation, distribution and retail of packaged foods and beverages, milk and milk products — which include bakery and dairy, animal feed, pet food, infant and baby food, tea and coffee, health supplements, nutraceuticals, food for special medical purposes — are all exempted from the lockdown orders.
It, of course, also includes the other essential products which include fruits and vegetables, rice, wheat, sugar, salt, spices, tea and coffee, eggs meat and fish amongst others.
As part of the advisory food delivery services and e- commerce, cold storage and warehousing of these products will also be allowed and so will all raw materials, intermediates, packaging material needed to support such products.
Earlier many beverage as well as dairy companies had said there was confusion on what constituted essential and non-essential commodities as far as food was concerned. This had led to closures of many facilities manufacturing food products.
The communication also says that uninterrupted manufacturing of these food products was critical for maintaining supply chain and availability of food to the population.
Just a few days ago, companies like Pepsico, Coke, and
Nestle had to suspend manufacturing and distribution of most of their products because of the lockdown across the country. These firms can now open up their facilities as well as retail their products.
Pepsico’s bottling partner Varun Beverages had suspended all manufacturing operations and had stated that “in view of the lock down in many states and union territories across the country, production and distribution facilities have been temporarily shut”. Even Nestle had suspended its operations at many places.