The Smart Food Choice : A Study on the influence of Front of Package Nutritional label on the perceptions and buying behavior of Consumers

Introduction International, National and Local Scenario of Food Processing Industry Global Processed Food Industry According to Food Agricultural Organization (FAO), Food processing can be defined as the process that encompasses all the steps that food goes through from the time it is harvested to the time it arrives on consumer’s plate. The size of global processed food industry is estimated to be valued around at US $ 3.6 trillion and accounts for three-fourth of the global food sales. 1 Despite its large size, only 6% of processed foods are traded across borders compared to 16% of major bulk agricultural commodities. United States of America(USA) is the single largest consumer of processed food and accounts for 31% of the global sales. This is because as countries develop, high quality and value-added processed food such as convenience food is preferred over staples, which are prevalent in less developed economies. Over 60% of total retail processed food sales in the world are accounted by U.S.A, European Union and Japan taken together. Japan is the largest food rocessing market in the Asian region, though India and China are catching up fast and are likely to grow more rapidly. One of the most technically advanced food-processing industries globally is Australia as the products produced are of international standards and at comparatively lower prices. The share of India in global Food processed industry stands at around 1.6 %. The Ministry of Food Processing Industries has stated in its Vision 2015 that it aims to increase India’s share from current level to 3% of world processed food trade. Indian Processed Food Industry India has the second largest arable land of 161 million hectares and has the highest acreage under irrigation.Next to China, India is the second largest food producer in the world and has potential to immerge the biggest with food and agriculture sector. The size of food industry in India is estimated to be of Rs. 13, 20,000 crores (US $ 220 billion) by the end of 2015 and that of processed food industry is estimated to be of Rs.6, 60,000 crores (US $ 110 billion) by the end of 2015. The food processing industry is the 5 th largest industry in India in terms of production, consumption, export and expected growth. The food processing accounts for about 14% of manufacturing GDP, nearly 13% of India’s exports and 6% of total industrial investment and employs about 13 million people directly and 35 million people indirectly. 1 National Skill Development Corporation report, (2010). Human Resource and Skill Requirements in the Food Processing Sector: Study on mapping of Human Resource Skill Gaps in India till 2022. New Delhi, India. ABSTRACT India is the world’s second largest producer of food next to China and has potential of being the biggest with food and agriculture sector. The Food Processing industry is the 5th largest industry in India in terms of production, consumption, export and expected growth. Among the various sectors of Food Processing industry, ready to eat food product industry is growing at the fastest pace of 30 % p.a. There are nearly 100 international, national and local players already operating in industry and equal numbers of players are likely to enter in the market in coming years due to its huge growth potential. Ready to eat food products being product of low involvement category, a little differentiation exists among the product sproduced by various players of the industry so to differentiate their products companies make use of various marketing tools. One of the most prominent tools used in the industry is packaging. The companies make use of various packaging elements to differentiate their products. This study is undertaken to analyze the influence of Nutritional labels like free from trans fat and cholesterol provided on the packages of Namkeens on the perceptions and buying behavior of consumers of Rajkot. To attain the aim of study, a sample of 200 respondents was taken. The research paper is structured into five sections. The first section focuses on the introductory part of the paper. It highlights the international, national and local scenario of Food processing industry. The second section focuses on the aspects like definition of Packaged food, importance and role of packaging in the category and main objectives of the study. The third section discusses the previous studies parallel to the current study. It also highlights how the current study is different from the previous studies. The fourth section reveals how the research has been undertaken. The last section i.e. fifth section narrates the findings of the paper, limitations of the study, policy recommendations and concluding remarks.