India is on a growth path. Thanks to - among others - export success stories of IT- and pharmaceutical industries, a growing middle-class with increased incomes has emerged in the last few years.

The demand for food is growing and consumption patterns are changing. The market for processed food is growing heavily. Work and life styles have started to modify food habits- from home cooking to semi-cooked and convenience food products.

All the changes in consumption patterns and lifestyles are also affecting food retailing. Food retail will change drastically in the future, as consumers wish to go shopping for food items in a way they have experienced already when traveling abroad, or as they have seen on TV. New formats of food retail have arrived already in the country.

In order to cope with growing demand, the processed food industry is investing in new plants, new technologies and new machinery and equipment. Food processors buy the required capital goods from technology suppliers in India and abroad.

During 2005, we spotted the need of food processors and food technology companies, to reach out to customers in India, a vast country with multi climatic areas, and of food retailers and hospitality industries to understand the supply of products and services, overcoming the disadvantages of bottlenecks in infrastructure, limited distribution and limited readership of printed trade magazines, exhausting travel to meet distributors and expensive participation rates in fairs of doubtful quality in often poorly-equipped facilities in many parts of the country.

The same arguments - reaching the right target groups - pertains to jobs. Job offers and job search on FoodIndustryIndia.com is closer to decisions makers or qualified job seekers in the food industry than any other communication channel.

With FoodIndustryIndia.com, the companies of the Indian food-community have a platform to watch and to communicate to the Indian Food Industry and Food Sector throughout the year, deliver their messages, read about competitors, latest trends and requirements of retailers, independently from events and fairs whose timings, locations and conditions they cannot control. We regard trade fairs as very important. But they are only one of the necessary steps in a long marketing process to reach out to customers. FoodIndustryIndia.com fills the time gap between the fairs.

FoodIndustryIndia.com was founded by M. A. Winter, a marketing expert with vast experience in the Indian trade fair business. He held responsible for organizing food fairs, food processing technology fairs, and food packaging fairs, and has seen the need to provide more and better options for food and food technology companies to market their products on a larger scale round the year and not limited to trade fair times only.

Mr. Winter descends from a family of restaurant, bakery and supermarket owners. He holds a doctorate in food economics. If not traveling, he lives in New Delhi and Frankfurt.