India’s export of final consumer food products such as Ready to Eat (RTE), Ready to Cook (RTC) and Ready to Serve (RTS) under the APEDA basket has registered a significant growth in the last one decade.
With the Ministry of Commerce & Industry laying thrust on Value Addition of products for exports, the food products under the RTE category have registered an Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent in the last one decade and the share of RTE in APEDA export has increased from 2.1 per cent to 5 per cent during the same period.
The export of products under Ready to Eat (RTE), Ready to Cook (RTC) and Ready to Serve (RTS) segment have registered an CAGR of 10.4 per cent from 2011-12 to 2020-21. India exported more than $ 2.14 billion worth of final food products in 2020-21. Since final food products are time saving and readily available, the demand for food items under the categories of RTE, RTC and RTS has increased manifold in recent years.
The export of products under RTE, RTC and RTS categories rose by more than 23% to $ 1011 million in April – October (2021-22) compared to $ 823 million reported in April – October (2020-21).
According to the latest Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics data, India exported final food products which includes RTE, RTC and RTS, worth USD 5,438 million in the last three financial three years (2018-19 and 2020-2021).
In 2018-2019, India recorded RTE exports of USD 766 million, which rose to USD 825 million in 2019-20 and USD 1043 million in 2020-21. Meanwhile, the RTC food products recorded an export of USD 473 million in 2018-19, USD 368 million in 2019-20 and USD 560 million in 2020-21.
