World Grain - May 2008 - 23

COUNTRYFOCUS

of rice-mills/hullers, flour mills, pulse
mills and oilseed mills," according to
the Ministry of Food Processing Industries. A lakh equals 100,000. "There
are several thousands of bakeries, traditional food units and fruit/vegetable/
spice processing units in unorganized
sector," according to its website. "In
the organized sector, there are over 820
flour mills."
That figure of 820 represents just a
small proportion of the industry, Awadhesh Kumar, spokesman for the ministry, told World Grain. "It's just mills for
which we have licensed support. There
are probably thousands more."
The industry involves a large number
of small companies. "The companies are
basically localized," Kumar said. "They
operate on a regional basis. There is not
a single company that has a pan-Indian
market."
One reason for that is the large geographical size of the Indian market.
"Once wheat is processed, it becomes
perishable," he said. "It is very difficult
for flour produced in Delhi to be transported to Mumbai, for example."
The attaché report noted there are
around 1,000 medium-to-large flour
mills in India. They manufacture mostly
maida (flour), semolina and residual
flour. Their capacity is around 24 million tonnes a year, but the actual level
of processing is 10 to 12 million tonnes.
The rest of India's wheat, after what is
retained by farmers for seed and feed, is
mostly milled in small flour mills called
chakkies.
"Most wheat consumption is in the
form of homemade chapattis or rotis
(unleavened flat bread), using custom
milled atta (whole meal flour)," the report explained.
"Use of branded and packaged atta,
marketed by large companies, is increasing in cities. With the organized
retail sector booming with the entry
of several large Indian conglomerates,
more special purpose blends and brands
are likely to emerge."
Meda Dattaraj, Chairman of the
Roller Flour Mills Federation of India

and Chairman and Managing Director
Krishna Flour Mills (B) Pvt Ltd, put the
number of small flour mills at 25,000 or
more. He told World Grain the industry
needed to consolidate.
"When you have so many mills, with
distribution arms and all those things, it
will become critical," he said. "The handling of the wheat and the finished prod-

uct has to become bulk." Consolidation
is needed all through the chain, right
down the bakery companies, he said. WG
Chris Lyddon is World Grain's European
editor. He may be contacted at:
chris.lyddon@ntlworld.com.
We want to hear from you - Send comments and
inquiries to worldgrain@sosland.com. For reprints of
WG articles, e-mail reprints@sosland.com.

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