Indian nutra industry association’s chief outlines three-pronged approach for growth – Watch

01-Jun-2022 - Last updated on 01-Jun-2022 at 02:37 GMT

The chief of an Indian nutraceutical industry body has outlined three key initiatives that it is driving to elevate India’s competitiveness in the global stage.

India’s consumer health products market boasted a size of INR1.03tr (US$15.24bn) in FY21. This was a CAGR of 14 per cent in the three years between FY18 and FY21, according to a report published by Ernst & Young in February.

A breakdown shows that the market size of the dietary supplement market was INR331bn, while that of the health and wellness foods industry was INR700bn.

Within the dietary supplement market, herbal supplements’ market size was INR92bn, after vitamins and minerals which had a market size of INR152bn.

The herbal segment is likely to contribute 30 per cent of the nutraceuticals supplements market in India, with a CAGR growth of roughly 20 per cent from 2015 to 2023, according to the country’s Ministry of Food Processing Industries.

Speaking to NutraIngredients-Asia, Sanjaya Mariwala, founder president of the Association of Herbal and Nutraceutical Manufacturers of India (AHNMI) and the founder of functional ingredient supplier OmniActive, outlined the three key initiatives that the industry body has to help grow the industry.

One of which was to help bridge the gap between the government and the industry by facilitating more dialogues between the two.

An example of the latest engagement was over the Biological Diversity Act, where the Indian government had proposed amendments such as introducing a fee on companies that use biological resources in their operations.

The fees are collected towards the conservation of biodiversity and the fees apply to both Indian and MNCs. The firms, ranging from nutraceutical to cosmetics and agri-businesses, will need to engage with the relevant Indian authorities to determine if they would need to pay the Access and Benefit Sharing fee.

“I think the government has gone too heavy on the biodiversity Protection Act.

“Some of the actions that the lawmakers are proposing could have a fairly negative impact on the ability of India to serve the customers more effectively.

“So we've had to sit with the government and negotiate and explain to them the logic of what they're doing and why it is not right and what they should actually change to make it more investor friendly, more export friendly, and more business friendly,” Mariwala said.

The other initiatives include self-regulation of the industry to curb the spread of false health claims, as well as working with the government on planting botanicals that are in short supply or endangered.

Mariwala will be speaking at the Nutrify Today C-Suite Summit in Mumbai next month, where NutraIngredients-Asia is the exclusive International Digital Media partner.

Watch the video to find out more.