Mar 27, 2020
Britannia has requested that the government to safeguard inter-state movement of the raw material for the food processing industry during the three-week lockdown, imposed to prevent pandemic of Covid-19.
Necessary permits need to be immediately issued to all people who are part of the food industry supply chain, from suppliers of raw materials and packaging materials, food manufacturing factories, factory workers, transporters of materials and finished goods, depots, wholesalers, distributors and their sales persons.
Britannia Industries MD Varun Berry said, while supporting the government’s effort, it needs to intervene is required to restore supply chains with immediate effect. According to him, the food industry supply chain is disaggregated and dependent on inter-state movement of goods.
Due to the nature of the materials, inventories across the chain are low and even if one link in the supply chain is broken, the country could run out of stocks of packaged food in the next 7-10 days.
Food is a declared essential commodity as per the Essential Commodities Act 1955 and the food processing industry has been exempted from the work and movements restrictions imposed at this point in time.