Bakery Industry in India

Does Bakery come under Industrial sector? Aren’t bakery products such as cakes, cookies, rusk, etc., produced in a local bakery? Is it a huge industry?

The answer to all the questions is YES!

One of the largest segment of the food processing industry in India is Bakery Industry with more than 2,000 industrial bakeries producing around 1.4 million tons of the bakery products and 1,000,000 small-scale bakeries producing 1.8 million tons of bakery products. Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly!) India is the second largest producer of biscuits (cookies) in the world after the USA.

The bakery industry in India can be categorized into three broad sectors.

Fig: Categories of Bakery Industry in India 

Some of the popular Indian bakery brands are: Britannia, Parle, ITC and Cadbury and they compromise about 75% of the Indian market.

Fig: Range of bakery products from Britannia Industries (Source: Internet)

Trends

Bakery items are a food product of mass utilization in perspective of their low cost and with fast development and changing dietary patterns of individuals, they have picked up prevalence among the population. Nowadays people are opting “healthy” options such as whole grain products and hence the products such as Britannia’s Nutrichoice, Parle’s Marigold, etc., are becoming more popular. These new trends give a way to product innovation (interesting, right?!).

Now you must be wondering what is a product innovation?

So, a product innovation is improvising the existing food product. This can include fortification of different nutrients, fibers, meeting the new trends of whole grain products, gluten-free baked products, etc.

Can you take it as your career option? YES!!

Is it interesting (or should I say challenging?) Yes, ‘if’ you love to experiment!

So, what are the different challenges one can face?

The different challenges can range from a simple step of improvising the product to a complicated procedure of putting it on a large-scale production. The changes in the formulation usually require making changes in the equipment, process and ingredient cost.

One of the major issue Indian Bakery industry faces is the limitation of skilled manpower at all levels of bakery operations along with lack of technology.

What are the different career options in Bakery Industry?

Apart from the regular job roles such as a baker, a confectionary baker, an artisan bread specialist, etc., there are some interesting jobs which a baker can perform, such as:

•    Love working with machines?

You get to “play” with the interesting bakery equipment such as

• Mixers – weigh the ingredients and put them into blending machines  
• Dough molders/Chunker operators – operate machines that shape the balls into loaves  
• Divider machine operators – control the machines that shape dough into small balls
• Proofer operators – allows the fermentation process
• Oven – bake the goods, carefully watching time and temperature

•    Want to have an interesting career?

Lucrative employment opportunities are accessible abroad for experienced experts. They can participate in different airlines and carriers abroad as gourmet experts in the surge of the bakery.