Current status and strategies of fruit and vegetable processing in Punjab

摘要

Punjab produces about 40 lakh tonnes of fruits and vegetables annually. These are highly perishable commodities and losses occur to the extent of 30-50% depending on the nature of commodity. The most of the fruits and vegetables are consumed in freshform except for a very small quantity is used for manufacture of pickles, preserve, jam, sauce, ketchup, potato chips, squash, ready-to-serve drinks and other canned and bottled products. These are produced mostly by the unorganized small-scale industry. The installed capacity utilization of fruits and vegetables industry is 46%, which accounts for 2% processing of the total fresh produce.