Workshop Overview

Tetra Pak, a global food processing and packaging solutions company, organized a leadership workshop titled “Strengthening Food Security for a Growing India” in Delhi, in partnership with the International Council for Circular Economy (ICCE) and consulting firm Primus Partners. The event gathered policymakers, industry leaders, academia, research institutions, multilateral organisations and development partners.

Key participants included NIFTEM, ICAR, TERI, UNIDO, Nestlé, PepsiCo, BASF, IFPRI and the Good Food Institute, among others.

The workshop opened with a keynote by Shri Siraj Hussain, former Secretary of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries and the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, who emphasized that India’s food‑security challenge requires not only higher production but also substantial reduction of food losses through improved preservation, processing and supply‑chain systems.

Dr. Rajbir Singh, Deputy Director General (Agricultural Extension) of ICAR, highlighted that post‑harvest losses currently stand at 15‑20 % and set a target to bring them down to approximately 5 % by 2047, alongside improvements in nutrient‑use efficiency, mechanisation and water‑use efficiency.

Report Launch

During the session Tetra Pak and the National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM) launched their joint research report “GHG Emissions from Food Loss and Waste”. The report analyses the climate impact of food loss and waste in India and underscores the role of loss reduction as a pathway to enhance food security and meet climate‑action objectives.

Key Priorities Identified

  • Strengthening the “critical middle” of the food value chain – aggregation, processing, packaging, storage, logistics and distribution – through coordinated stakeholder action.
  • Reducing food loss and waste via better post‑harvest management, processing, packaging and logistics.
  • Investing in processing and packaging infrastructure and innovative technologies to extend shelf‑life and improve availability.
  • Leveraging digital solutions and circular‑economy approaches to increase supply‑chain efficiency.
  • Collecting granular, ground‑level data on food loss and waste to identify hotspots, enable targeted interventions and monitor progress.
  • Incorporating explicit food‑loss‑and‑waste reduction targets into India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and recognising innovative processing and packaging technologies in policy frameworks.

Commitments

The participants affirmed a shared commitment to deepen cross‑sector collaboration, strengthen evidence‑based policymaking, promote investment and innovation across the critical middle of the food value chain, and pursue actionable steps to improve food security, cut food loss and waste, and build a more sustainable food ecosystem in India.