Tata Group to enter ready-to-eat food industry

Tata Group is exploring its entry into ready-to-eat food industry. The industry is presently dominated by companies like ITC, MTR and Patanjali.

Tata Industries, its holding company for new-age businesses, will be looking at manufacturing and marketing vegetarian, non- vegetarian, non-alcoholic, carbonated and non-carbonated food products.

Even though the company has confirmed the development, the project is still in experimental stages and may or may not evolve into a business later on.

"Market opportunities we see are at the intersection of consumer preferences, especially millennials, for recipes in a convenient and quick format. The conventional domestic ready-to-eat market is too small currently to be seen as a standalone market opportunity," a Tata Industries spokesperson told ET.

The Indian ready-to-eat market has over a dozen existing players, with several more queued up for later, because of the large base of young consumers, a majority of country’s workforce.

Tata Group already exists in foods and beverages industry via its companies like Tata Chemicals and Tata Global Beverages.