Home scale or cottage scale production of food is very common in most developing countries and these so called micro enterprises are encouraged as they are the best self employed entrepreneurs with innovative ideas and unique skills. Supporting these enterprises is an avowed policy choice in many countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa and such support services must include liberal financial assistance, technological inputs, training facilities and advisory facilities. In contrast larger enterprises are invariably self reliant with respect to the above needs and are better placed in marketing their products. One of the most critical inputs for flowering of micro enterprises is "hand holding" service that will enable them to "wade" through the complex procedural maze and set up the minimum facilities for starting production successfully. The example of a Center that provides the above service comes from one of the counties in the US which is indeed a model for all those countries aspiring to strengthen the foundation of food industry through the so called "unorganized" but important food manufacturing sector.
"Hillsborough County's Small Business Information Center (SBIC) is offering two additional free food industry workshops this month for at-home bakers. The workshops will provide information on proper licensing and permitting for mobile food units, caterers, restaurants, personal chefs and commercial kitchens. The workshops will also provide information on the new Florida Cottage Food Act, which became a state law on July 1 and gives budding chefs the freedom to start a business in their own kitchen without having to obtain expensive special licensing".
In seminars, conferences, workshops, get-together events concerning food industry development, the issue of concrete help to unorganized sector of food industry that include home based units, cottage scale entities etc, is never taken up seriously and there is hardly any impact such events can make on the industrial landscape. In India, for example, there is no clue for a new entrepreneur regarding the pre-requisites for starting a food industry though the District Industry Centers (DICs), so imaginative in concept, was set up more than 4 decades ago. It is another matter that such Centers have become just government offices with old chairs and tables with "babus" manning them! Is it not possible to modernize these DICs by equipping with the necessary wherewithal to escort new entrepreneurs all the way to set up and productionize their dream projects? After all there are only about 800 DICs and making them truly functional and effective with suitable personnel may entail hardly a few million rupees. It is beyond one's comprehension as to why this idea has not endeared to the babus that lord over the Ministry of Food Processing Industry at Delhi! There appears to be a total paralysis that has crippled the government in taking any initiative like this that can give a ray of hope to this unfortunate sector of food industry.
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