Changes in Cunsumption Pattern in India After Globalisation

TRENDS AND PATTERN OF CONSUMPTION OF
VALUE ADDED FOODS IN INDIA

Michel Morisset and Pramod Kumar
The economic growth, changes in tastes and preferences and urbanization has resulted in changing consumption pattern away from traditional food commodities to processed and high value commodities (Murty, 2000; Meenakshi, 1996; Rao, 2000). The consumption of food is falling because of shift in consumption away from cereals to high calorie commodities such as meat, milk, fish etc, in other words from low value to high value commodities (Kumar and Kumar, 2004; Meenakshi, 1996). In rural areas the shift in consumption pattern is more in those regions that are experiencing greater improvement in infrastructure (Rao, 2000). The changing consumption pattern has resulted in decline in per capita household demand for foodgrains (Radhakrishna and Ravi, 1992; Kumar and Mathur, 1996; Murty, 1999; Kumar and Kumar, 2003). However, there has been little attempt to assess the changes in consumption pattern by value added food products. The analysis of food consumption in Urban India is of greater interest. It permits not only to understand the food consumption pattern of an important and growing population but also reveals the future of consumption habits in India. It is considered that the changes in consumption are more likely to happen in urban than in rural India. Even more, it is among the urban population that the most important concentration of wealthy people are found and they are considered the most auspicious to introduce the new trends. An understanding of the changing consumption pattern according to the extent of value addition would have implications not only for foodgrains demand projection but also for development policies. It is therefore, pertinent to understand: what is the extent of shift? Has the consumption of value added products really increased, if yes, then to what extent? Is this shift observable across all the income groups of the populationand

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