Major industries constituting the Food processing industry are grains, sugar, edible oils, beverages and dairy products. The key sub-segments of the Food Processing industry in India are: Dairy, Fruits & Vegetables, Poultry & Meat processing , Fisheries, Food retail etc.

• Water. Water accounts for over 90 percent of most foods . ...
• Salt and Salt Substitutes. Generally, salt is added to foods to enhance their flavor. ...
• Sugars and Nonnutritive Sweeteners. ...
• Acidulants. ...
• Color Enhancers and Colorants. ...
• Texture Enhancers and Thickening Agents. ...
• Miscellaneous Ingredients .
• Poor yield of farm produce and therefore low returns.
• Lack of material resources necessary for development.
• Primitive methods of farming.
• No control on the quality of inputs and lack of finance to manage.
• Vagaries of weather.
• Unavailability of reliable handling and transportation system.
• Lack of storage facilities at farm.
• Benefits of food processing include toxin removal, preservation, easing marketing and distribution tasks, and increasing food consistency. In addition, it increases yearly availability of many foods, enables transportation of delicate perishable foods across long distances and makes many kinds of foods safe to eat by de-activating spoilage and pathogenic micro-organisms. Modern supermarkets (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarket) would not exist without modern food processing techniques, and long voyages would not be possible.

  Processed foods are usually less susceptible to early spoilage than fresh foods and are better suited for long-distance transportation from the source to the consumer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer) . ^{[3] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_processing#cite_note-:1-3)} When they were first introduced, some processed foods helped to alleviate food shortages and improved the overall nutrition of populations as it made many new foods available to the masses. ^{[7] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_processing#cite_note-7)}