Bakery is a traditional activity and occupies an important place in food processing industry. A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, pastries, and pies. Baking, particularly the baking of bread is one of the oldest of human activities. Baked goods have been around for thousands of years. The art of baking was developed early during the Roman Empire. Due to the fame and desire that the art of baking received, around 300 BC, baking was introduced as an occupation and respectable profession for Romans.
There are many bakery products like bread and its different variants, biscuits, cakes & pastries, cookies, puffs etc. having ready market round the year. Each product enjoys a very wide range in terms of size or weight, flavours, end-use and so on. There is a tremendous scope to introduce new varieties every year.
Bread is eaten as a snack, or used as an ingredient in other culinary preparations, such as fried items coated in crumbs to prevent sticking, or the bland main component of a bread pudding, or stuffings designed to fill cavities or retain juices that otherwise might drip away. Cookie is dunked into the tea and eaten quickly due to the biscuit's tendency to disintegrate when wet.Bun is used in making burger, sandwiches. Rusk is dunked into tea and eaten.
The bakery manufacturers in India can be differentiated into the three broad segments of bread, biscuits and cake. About 1.3 millionstonnes of the bakery products industry in India is in the organized sector out of 3millions tonnes, while the balance comprises of unorganized, small-scale local manufacturers. The branded packaged segment in this sector had a size of Rs. 17,000 crore in last financial year and is expected to grow at phenomenal rate of 13-15 per cent in the next 3-4 years. Within biscuits, 3-4 large-sized players viz. Britannia, Parle, ITC, Cadburys comprise about 75 per cent of the market. The bakery industry is one of the high growth segments of the country. As a result of changing eating habits in urban India during recent years, due to social considerations and the improved standard of living and also as a result of the influence of globalisation, bakery industry in India is going through impressive growth rates.
With the demand for bakery products growing exponentially across the country over the past few years, the bakery industry has been experiencing an upward spiral with changes in product pattern as per emerging trends. The Indian bakery industry is the largest of the food processing industries, estimated to be over Rs 7,000 crore accounting for a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15%. The industry has traditionally been and largely continues to be in the unorganised sector contributing over 75% of the total production.As a whole it is a good project for entrepreneurs.
