Healthy diet out of reach for 520 million Indians, KPMG report says

About 520.1 million people in India, or 35.5% of the population, could not afford a healthy diet in 2025, according to a report by consulting firm KPMG in India released on October 27, 2026. The report, titled "Future of Food Systems: Preparing for the Next Frontier", uses the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Cost of a Healthy Diet indicator and argues that India's food problem has moved from growing enough to making nutritious food affordable. It says India produces around 36% more food than normative requirements, yet actual food consumption remains about 20% below what is prescribed.

A healthy diet, in the FAO's definition, is not just enough calories. It means a varied plate: whole grains and millets, pulses, vegetables, fruits, milk or other protein, and some healthy fats, in amounts that meet nutritional needs. The traditional Indian thali, with dal, sabzi, curd and a grain, is close to that ideal, but the report's finding is that more than a third of Indians cannot regularly afford all of its parts. When money is short, the foods most at risk of being cut are pulses, vegetables, fruit and milk, which are the main sources of protein, vitamins and minerals.

That explains the paradox the report highlights. Cereal supplies are plentiful, and subsidised grain reaches many households through the public distribution system. But a diet heavy in cereals and light on everything else can leave people short of vitamins and protein. India's own dietary guidelines from the Indian Council of Medical Research's National Institute of Nutrition, released in 2024, estimate that unhealthy diets account for 56.4% of the country's total disease burden.

The report links affordability to waste. Fruits and vegetables are the foods most likely to spoil between farm and market, and the losses it cites, up to 15% for fruits and nearly 12% for vegetables, push up prices in the shops. A shortage of 10 to 15 million tonnes of cold storage means much of that produce cannot be kept fresh. Better storage, transport and traceability, the report argues, could lower prices for the very foods that make a diet healthy.

Short-term: The report adds weight to calls for nutrition-focused food policy, such as including pulses, millets and oils in public food schemes, and for faster investment in cold chains for perishable produce.

Long-term: If storage, logistics and productivity improve, the cost of fruit, vegetables, milk and pulses could fall, making a balanced, traditional-style diet affordable to more households. Without that, the gap between full granaries and poorly nourished people is likely to persist.

Who is affected: low-income households, especially those that spend most of their income on food; farmers growing perishables who lose produce to poor storage; food companies, cold-chain and logistics businesses; and policymakers running public food and nutrition schemes.

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