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The new food factories: Inside India's organics trade -Neetu Chandra Sharma

-Livemint.com

On 1 January 2019, India joined a group of roughly 50 countries which mandates consumer-friendly labelling for organic products. Will it work?

New Delhi:
In a bid to maintain good health, Manisha Bhardwaj, a software professional working in Noida, and her banker husband, Sakal Bhardwaj—both turning 40—have decided to bring some changes in their lifestyle and food habits. The couple has not only joined a gym to lose weight but has also completely switched to organic foods—ranging from organic fruits, vegetables, pluses to organic rice.

“Earlier, I was buying vegetables from a local vendor. But now, I order vegetables and fruits from websites that sell organic stuff,” said Manisha Bhardwaj. “In grocery stores too, my first preference is organic foods now,” she added.

The Bhardwaj family is not the only one undergoing this kind of transformation. Annu Gupta, a yoga and fitness trainer, also ensures that she buys all her vegetables and fruits from a local farm in Faridabad, which claims to be organic and supplies produce across Delhi-NCR.

Because of an emerging class of relatively affluent customers like Bhardwaj who have increasingly started to prefer grocery items that are deemed safe and healthy, organic food is a booming business. The market is niche and most Indians are still price conscious. But there is already a significant amount of money at play—with the organic foods market projected to hit ?10,000 crore by 2020, according to a Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) report. Given that the term ‘organic’ attracts premium pricing, there are huge incentives to game the system and sell pretty much anything under the umbrella term.

But the era of Wild West in the organic realm may be coming to an end. On 1 January 2019, India joined a group of roughly 50 countries which mandates clear and legible consumer-friendly labelling for organic products.

Henceforth, no person will be able to manufacture, pack, sell, market or otherwise distribute or import any organic food unless they label the package with complete and accurate information regarding the organic status of the product. Also, any such product should carry a government quality assurance mark and the new Jaivik Bharat logo, which is meant to distinguish organic products from non-organic ones.

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