Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Smt Anita Praveen chaired a roundtable interaction with senior officials from central ministries and departments on 15^th December, 2022 at Vigyan Bhawan Annexe, New Delhi. This was the third session in the series of roundtable interactions which are being held with key stakeholders such as major agri-food companies, resident commissioners of States and UTs.

The roundtable witnessed participation from the senior officials of central government ministries and departments from Agri Food and allied sectors.

During the keynote address, Secretary, FPI informed the officials that the Mega Food Event will be organized between 16-18 October, 2023 in New Delhi. The event is planned to be on a larger scale than the event earlier organised by the Ministry in 2017. She emphasized that the mega event will provide an opportunity for stakeholders such as producers, food processors, equipment manufacturers, logistics players, cold chain players, technology providers, Start-up &innovators, food retailors etc. to showcase their strength of Indian Food Processing Sector, Central Ministries and departments of allied sectors will have an opportunity to showcase their technological advancements and achievements in front of domestic and global investor fraternity.

While the Mega food event will focus on all segments of Food Processing Sector, this will have a specific focus on promoting millets and millets based products owing to International Year of Millets - 2023. Through this event, the Ministry envisages to spread awareness about food richness of India, immense scope of investment in India’s Food and Food Processing Industry Sector, role of millets in sustainable agriculture and food security and its benefits as super food in the contemporary world.

All the central ministries and departments were requested to share suggestions on the planned sessions of the Mega Food Event and participate in the event actively as well as support the Ministry in awareness creation, embark participation of senior policy makers, financial institutions, agri-food companies, FPOs / SHGs and all relevant stakeholders to make the event a grand success.

The participating officials assured support to MoFPI in all activities planned as a precursor to the Mega Food Event 2023. Some of the suggestions / feedback given by the officials included dovetailing promotional activities for better outreach and harnessing mutual gains, jointly organising buyer-seller meets, etc.

Secretary, FPI concluded her remarks by urging all stakeholders to join hands in making the event a success by leveraging their respective strengths and extending additional support via combined National and International promotional activities through respective social media handles and bi-lateral engagements. She also opined that through the event the ministry aims to showcase India as a Global Food Supply Hub.

Further, the Investment Facilitation Cell (Invest India) was directed to coordinate with the respective ministries and departments for facilitating the discussed action plan and seek necessary support from government bodies.

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MJPS / RR

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