Food industry in Azerbaijan is an industrial branch that processes, prepares, preserves and packs agricultural raw materials with appropriate methods in the country. Regarding to the volume of industrial production agrarian (food, beverage and tobacco) ranked the first among the other procession industries.

Overview
Statistics reveal that the production of food, tobacco products and beverage reached to 2.7 billion manats in 2014. In that period oil production was listed in the second place with 2.6 billion manats. Over the last decade the volume of the agricultural industry increased an average of 2.7 times in Azerbaijan. Overall, more than 22 thousand people and 631 enterprises are operated in this field. Although the number of enterprises and employees declined during the global crisis in 2008, a reverse tendency was observed in 2012. In that year more than 30 new enterprises and 2.5 thousand working places were created. Furthermore, per capita productivity has increased by 1.7 times in the food industry in 2003 – 2012. Creation of the large enterprises based on new technology is considered as the main reason of increased productivity. Nowadays, self-sufficiency level of canned vegetables and fruit, sugar, flour, bread, bakery and meat products is higher than 90%.

Recently established enterprises
In recent years a number of enterprises was launched in the food industry. They are indicated below:

Year of establishment Factory Production
2003 Caucasus Conserve Plant Canned beef, jam, compote, caviar, pickle and other canned products
2005 Gabala Canning Factory Pure juice, concentrate, purées, jams, pickled goods, canned goods
2006 Imishli Sugar Factory Sugar
2008 Gabala Milk Procession Factory Dairy products
2012 Tartar Milk Procession Factory Dairy products
2014 Gilan Food Village in Gabala Bottled juice, ice tea, lemonade, other soft drinks, sparkling and still water
Governmental support
In 2014 seventy projects were financed by National Support Fund of Entrepreneurship. 57 of them were food production projects.

6 logistics center with capacity of 152 thousand tons
3 specialized green markets, including 3 logistics center with capacity of 9 thousand tons and 500 farmer shops
5 poultry plants with capacity of more than 3 thousand tons of meat 11 million breeding and 26.4 million marketable eggs
6 breeding complexes with 2700 livestock
6 large farms
9 greenhouses
6 bakeries with capacity of 97 tons per day
A fruit and vegetable processing factory with million tons of annual production capacity
2 dairy factories with 25 thousand tons of procession capacity
A flour production facility with annual procession capacity of 22 thousand tons
5 gardening farms
A vineyard
A tea plantation and tea processing plant
WorldFood Azerbaijan
Since 2007 Azerbaijan has hosted Azerbaijan International Food Industry Exhibition every year in May. Every year more than 150 companies participate in exhibition from about 20 countries such as Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Hungary, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Japan etc. Azerbaijani companies actively participate in exhibitions and there are a number of permanent local attendants: Gilan Holding, Azersun Holding, Metak, Amoris and Buta Group. Companies demonstrate their products in the areas such as, refrigeration systems, laboratory and food industry equipment, beverages, confectionery and bakery products, vegetables and fruits, groceries, dairy products, coffee, tea, meat and poultry products in the exhibition. Iteca Caspian LLC is the organizer of the exhibition.

Azerbaijan Federation of Agricultural and Food Industry Worker’s Trade Union
Federation provides bilateral negotiations with employers in the provision of in the socio-economic rights of employees. In order to accomplish improvements in this field federation cooperates with the same facilities from several countries – Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Georgia.

History
Worker’s Trade Union was established in 1906. In that time Union covered 230 members that were food processors. In subsequent years Worker’s Trade Unions were established in several fields individually. In 1917 Trade Unions of Beer and Kvass, Tobacco-growers, Millers, Confectioners and Bakers were launched in Baku. In 1920 these unions were assembled in the following three Worker’s Trade Unions – Agriculture and forestry workers, Food products manufacturers and Tobacco-growers. However, these three unions were also united in two Trade Unions in 1953. They were Workers of Agriculture and Delivery and Workers of Food Industry. After the establishment of USSR Agrarian-Industrial Complex in 1986 Trade Union of Agrarian Complex Workers was established.

Source from Wikipedia