NEW DELHI: Some of the largest companies in India and abroad, including PepsiCo, Amazon and Britannia, have committed investments of $10.24 billion, or about Rs 68,000 crore, in the Indian processed foods space.ITC, Coca-Cola, Cargill, Patanjali and Yes Bank, too, were among companies that signed 13 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) at the World Food India event here on Friday.While beverages and snacks firm PepsiCo committed Rs 13,300 crore for setting up a food and beverage plant, Coca-Cola said it will invest Rs 11,000 crore in juice bottling infrastructure, fruit processing plants and equipment.FMCG and hotels company ITC and ayurvedic products maker Patanjali said they will investing Rs 10,000 crore each in the sector.Ecommerce giant Amazon also committed investments in the food retail business, while Janani Foods, Metro, Cargill, Britannia, Hershey’s, Blue Star India, Sharaf Group of UAE and Yes Bank committed investments across food processing projects, manufacturing, exports and financing.“These investments will help us realise the goal of doubling farmers’ incomes as well as generating massive employment in food processing,” Union food processing industries minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal told reporters.Earlier, inaugurating the threeday event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told investors there were huge opportunities in postharvest management, processing and storage, cold chain and refrigerated transportation, and organic and fortified foods.Paul Bulcke, chairman of the world’s largest foods maker Nestle , congratulated the Prime Minister on India climbing 30 places in World Bank ranking on ease of doing business . “This is relevant, impressive and will encourage investments in India,” he said.Amanda Sourry, global president of food at Unilever , said the world is looking towards India. “India has been at the forefront of economic growth for the last few years and ranks itself in the top 10 in GDP terms,” he said. “The opportunity of food in India is huge with a population of 1.3 billion people, emerging middle class, a youth segment larger than the entire population of the US, and increasing rate of urbanisation. The opportunity of providing nutritious, safe and tasty food to over one billion people must be addressed,” Sourry said.Pieter Boone, CEO, Metro Cash and Carry, said recent policy decisions to improve ease of doing business, strong encouragement to FDI, demonetisation and GST make India a viable place to invest. "Metro is convinced of India's potential. We are excited to join, explore opportunities to empower India's food economy and we are thrilled to be part of this journey."ITC said investments will be channelled to set up 20 integrated consumer goods manufacturing and logistics facilities in 12 states to manufacture Aashirvaad atta, Sunfeast biscuits, Yippee noodles, Bingo snacks, B Natural juices, processed fruits and vegetables.“India’s consumption market is projected to triple to $4 trillion by 2025 with the bulk of expenditure going into food products,” ITC chief executive Sanjiv Puri said. “Improvement in agricultural yields and increase in the level of processing from the current 10% to 30% can increase the GDP by as much as five fold,” he said.Acharya Balkrishna, MD at Patanjali, said Baba Ramdev’s company would set up food processing units in six different locations in the country “for products ranging from biscuits to herb extraction. As of now the focus is on processing juices,” he said. “In Nagpur, we are coming with a facility to process 8,000 tonnes oranges daily. Our target is to now process over 2,000 tonnes of amla and aloe vera daily.”India’s food and beverage consumption is expected to triple in the next seven years. The fast growth likely in the food economy suggests huge potential for food processing and allied sectors. The way ahead is to rationalise taxes and levies, and ramp up infrastructure like quality power, modern logistics and reliable transport. The entire value chain needs proactive policy attention, so as to step up oversight, shore up quality standards and boost innovation.