Vol. 7, Issue 1, Part J (2025)

Food, in its journey from its raw form to our plates, often undergoes a series of transformations. These transformations, collectively termed as food processing, encompass a wide range of techniques. From basic actions like cleaning and cutting to sophisticated industrial procedures such as pasteurization, freezing, and milling, food processing alters the original state of ingredients. This processing occurs across various settings, including homes, restaurants, and large-scale production facilities. Consequently, a significant portion of our daily food intake comprises, to some degree, processed items. Besides growing economy of a country, sufficient disposable income, busy life style, in India the prime reason for growing trend of inclination towards consumption of processed food is due to traditional joint families was replaced by nuclear families. In most nuclear families both men and women going out to work and found very less time to cook. However Indian women still use to do cooking in the kitchen during the weekends using time saving cooking techniques and using some vital processed foods like masala, curd, Cheena or paneer etc. The present study focuses on the registered Micro Small and Medium enterprises (MSMEs) based food processing industries operating in the far-flung district of Cachar located in Assam. It also highlights the higher growth potential observed among the food processing categories in the region and witnessed growing demand of local MSME based food processing industries. Moreover, the study should be useful for getting an idea about future development of supporting industries for benefiting MSME food processing industries operating in the region.