Mar 30, 2020
At the outbreak of Covid-19, India’s decision on nationwide lockdown has brought Coca-Cola India, Nestle India and various other brands of big MNCs in the country to call for F&B manufacturing be made as an ‘essential service’ in order to keep supermarkets and home shelves stocked and evade further panic-stricken citizens.
Barely four hours before the lockdown took effect, the news made the country into a panic buying what
Inspite of Centre and State Governments ensured all essentials will be made available and ‘essential services’ were supposedly going to continue functioning, pleading to public to stop panic-buying had little effect in the market.
With an ambiguous situation as to what will be provided and what will be banned, this has prompted top brands such as Coca-Cola, Nestle, Britannia Industries, Mondelez, PepsiCo and more to submit letters and requests to both the authorities requesting for the F&B manufacturing sector to be deemed as an ‘essential service’ and thus exempted from restrictions under the lockdown in order to continue production and transportation.
The concerned requests were made through three main trade associations viz.. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the US India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and the All India Foods Processors’ Association.
“To maintain regular supplies, it is necessary that this sector is not put under any work and movement restrictions. Along with the food and beverage sector, food ingredients companies should also be allowed to operate smoothly,” said the FICCI letter, warning that stopping these production activities would also impact the livelihoods of farmers and other production suppliers and consumers.
The USISPF agreed with this, adding that: “Supply chains for food are highly integrated; disruption to any one part will have a ripple effect and the impact would be felt back to the agriculture sector.”
Varun Berry, MD Britannia Industries, also warned that time was short to put these supply chains back into motion.
“If even one link in the supply chain is broken, the country could run of stocks of packaged food in the next seven to 10 days. The supply chain includes suppliers of raw materials and packaging materials, food manufacturing factories, factory workers, and transporters carrying materials and finished goods, depots, wholesalers, distributors, and their salesmen. Necessary permits need to be immediately issued to all of them”, he added.
Coca-Cola India has also delivered a separate message on its website, saying that it had ‘temporarily suspended production’ at all manufacturing units, but was working to provide its ‘essential beverages’ to consumers.
Nestle India also posted its own statement online, saying that its office employees were working from home, and operational staff would focus on ‘social distancing and hygienic practices for the safety of the people’.
“As Nestle is in the manufacture and sale of food and beverage products, we are in discussion with the authorities to continue operations in the factories and distribution centres where the operations has been suspended,” it added.
Apart from the top brands, India has become a home to many start-ups in the sector, and the lockdown is expected to have tremendous effect on their operations while question of survival is critical.