The food industry is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that together supply much of the food energy consumed by the world population. Only subsistence farmers, those who survive on what they grow, can be considered outside of the scope of the modern food industry.
The food industry includes:
– Regulation: local, regional, national and international rules and regulations for food production and sale, including food quality and food safety, and industry lobbying activities
– Education: academic, vocational, consultancy
– Research and development: food technology
– Financial services insurance, credit
– Manufacturing: agrichemicals, seed, farm machinery and supplies, agricultural construction, etc.
– Agriculture: raising of crops and livestock, seafood
– Food processing: preparation of fresh products for market, manufacture of prepared food products
– Marketing: promotion of generic products (e. g. milk board), new products, public opinion, through advertising, packaging, public relations, etc.
– Wholesale and distribution: warehousing, transportation, logistics
– Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for consumption by humans or animals either in the home or by the food processing industry. Food processing typically takes clean, harvested crops or butchered animal products and uses these to produce attractive, marketable and often long shelf-life food products. Similar processes are used to produce animal feed.
– Extreme examples of food processing include the delicate preparation of deadly fugu fish or preparing space food for consumption under zero gravity.
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