India is talking about protein like never before, yet gaps in access, affordability, and adequate nutrition prevail; 80% of Indians do not meet their recommended daily protein intake (0.83g per kilogram of body weight) largely due to cereal-heavy diets. With rising incomes and awareness of protein sufficiency, demand for diverse, high-quality protein sources is growing rapidly. However, meeting this demand by expanding and further industrialising conventional animal proteins carries a serious cost. Animal agriculture already contributes nearly 50% of India’s methane emissions while also driving water overuse, biodiversity loss, and public health risks such as antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic diseases.
Smart proteins, including plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cultivated meat, offer resource-efficient, nutritious, and increasingly affordable alternatives to animal protein. Among these, plant-based proteins are already commercially available, scalable, and culturally adaptable, making them a priority in the near-term.
India has a significant opportunity not just as a domestic market for plant-based proteins but to build and own the end-to-end value chain that produces them. As the world’s largest producer of pulses and oilseeds and a leading producer of soy and millets, India’s strength lies in its agricultural base of protein-rich, climate-resilient crops. Plant-based proteins are a growing focus of the Government of India, linked to agricultural and research missions such as Aatmanirbharta in pulses. Producing smart protein products using these indigenous crops can create a powerful demand driver for farmers, incentivising crop diversification toward pulses, millets, and oilseeds away from resource-intensive cash crops while improving soil health and agricultural resilience. India also has real strength in process equipment manufacturing and engineering talent, with around 150–200 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Yet, translating this agricultural and manufacturing strength into value-added products remains a key challenge. A new report by NIFTEM-T and GFI India highlights that post-harvest processing capacity for sustainable protein alternatives is significantly constrained by equipment costs and import dependence. Specialised equipment, such as extruders, separators, and dryers, is needed to competitively scale domestic production of plant-based smart proteins. They process crops into plant protein concentrates and isolates, texturised vegetable protein (dry or wet TVP), whole-muscle meat alternatives (fillets and steaks), and restructured meat alternatives (mimicking ground or shredded animal-based meat). These ingredients exhibit improved functionality, digestibility, and bioavailability, enabling formulation into structured end products with fibrous textures analogous to animal-based meat, while being shelf-stable, nutritious and affordable.
Currently, India imports 90% of processed plant protein isolates, as it lacks cost-effective machinery to produce them. In fact, India faced a trade deficit of $650 million in equipment in 2024. The global market for advanced food processing machinery, valued at over $54 billion and dominated by China, the US, and Germany, remains untapped in India due to gaps in precision fabrication, advanced automation systems, access to critical components, and industry–academia linkages. This dual dependence significantly raises costs and exposes domestic manufacturers to volatile global supply chains.
Implementing an India-first model that leverages indigenous crops and domestically produced equipment will be critical to reducing import dependence. This means investing in R&D and shared infrastructure to reduce capital barriers as well as fostering partnerships between research institutions, equipment manufacturers, and food companies. Complementary actions such as developing a skilled workforce and service ecosystem will help position India as a competitive producer of plant protein processing equipment and ingredients.
Recent investments by the government as part of the BioE3 policy, which identifies ‘smart proteins and functional foods’ as one of six pillars, reinforce this direction. The Union minister of science and technology, Jitendra Singh, launched an ₹42 crore biofoundry at the National Agri-Food & Biomanufacturing Institute (NABI) in Mohali, which aims to bridge the gap between the lab and large-scale commercialisation. Highlighting its significance, he noted that smart proteins, enabled by microbial fermentation, plant biotechnology, and synthetic biology, offer a scalable and sustainable pathway for the future of food. Existing infrastructure and startup support from the ministry of food processing industries, including Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, will also play an important role in accelerating post-harvest processing capacity.
The smart protein sector has the potential to reinvigorate the demand for India’s native crops and positively contribute to the country’s nutrition security goals, self-sufficiency, and climate resilience. With the existing building blocks of a wide crop base, talent, and policy momentum, the missing link to ensure an integrated value chain is low-cost machinery. India must innovate, invest in, and localise the manufacturing of critical equipment to emerge as a global manufacturing hub for plant-based smart proteins.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Padma Ishwarya S, senior scientist, Good Food Institute India.
