Starting at an extremely low level compared to the pre-war level, all critical food industries, having met and exceeded the targets of the first post-war five-year plan, significantly surpassed the pre-war level of 1940 in the most important food products in 1950.
- However, industrial production of foodstuffs in 1950 still remained at a low level and significantly lagged behind the demand. Constantly growing material well-being of the Soviet people urgently put forward requirements of the further increase in foodstuff working out.
The continuous process of social and technical reconstruction of a national economy of the USSR unrecognizably changes shape of the country. The specific weight of the city population has risen from 33% in 1940 up to 53% on January 1, 1965. The quantity of cities and settlements of city type has increased accordingly from 2762 up to 5193. The national income of the USSR increased by 5.9 times during the same period. Growth of real incomes of workers, employees and peasants opened before the food-processing industry huge possibilities of the continuous increase in food production for the satisfaction of the growing demand of the Soviet people. And the steady rise of the economic power of a national economy created necessary conditions for equipment of industrial and technical base of food branches and increase in preparation of technical crops in agriculture.
In these conditions of progressive movement of socialist economy the process of vigorous building in all branches of the food-processing industry continued.
Clear directives on the deployment of large construction in the food industry were given at the XIX Congress of the CPSU in 1952: "In accordance with the increase in the resources of agricultural raw materials to implement the construction of a large number of enterprises in the light industry and food industry, in particular... Sugar, butter, vegetable drying plants, confectionery, tea, canning, brewing, winemaking, meat, fish, butter and cheese industries..."
Status by 1950.
Decisions of the September Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1953 on a significant increase in prices for agricultural products led to a sharp increase in raw materials resources and contributed to the acceleration of the development of a number of sectors of the food industry.
- Capital investments in the food-processing industry have steadily grown and for the period from 1950 to 1965 have made 13 billion rbl.
Such volume of capital investments provided the big scales of technical re-equipment and new building of the food enterprises. The basic directions of technical re-equipment were the following: transfer of periodically working equipment on continuously operating units, application of high-pressure vacuums, the introduction of continuous schemes of technological processes, the maximum mechanization of labor-intensive processes, introduction of automation of the control and the account of manufacture.
Urgent tasks of improvement of technical equipment of food enterprises were put forward in the speech of A. N. Kosygin at the XX Congress of the CPSU. He focused attention on the inadmissibility of lagging behind in the increase in production capacity of a number of food industries, as a result of which the resources of agricultural raw materials begin to overtake the processing capacity of this raw material.
- Special attention in Kosygin's speech was paid to the introduction of new equipment, improvement of the work of engineering design organizations. He said that machine builders are very slow in mastering the production of the latest equipment, offer little to the food industry branches of machines of new designs, and often aspire to produce long-developed types of machines. Therefore, the existing practice of equipment production planning requires improvement, it should contribute to the introduction of new equipment.
The big scale of capital construction and qualitative growth of equipment with new equipment allowed to raise all branches of the food industry on a much higher technical level, to re-design many old enterprises and to put into operation a considerable number of new enterprises. For seven years more than 800 large modern factories are constructed and about 2000 operating food enterprises are reconstructed.
The radical changes have taken place in the branch structure of the food-processing industry. In the pre-revolutionary period only three branches: flour' mono-scale, alcoholic beverage, and sugar - occupied on specific weight in gross production 78,8 %, on the number of the enterprises 71,6 % and on a number of workers 63,5 %. All other branches of industry accounted for less than a quarter of the gross output of the food industry.
The modern food-processing industry of the USSR according to the classification of the Central Statistical Department is presented more than 40 branches, many of which in former time either were in an embryonic condition or did not exist at all.
- In 1965 the specific weight of four major branches - meat, mole, fish and oil-fat - made 46% in gross production of all food-processing industry against 24,7% in the prewar period. During the same period, the share of flour, cereals and bakery industry decreased from 35 to 21%. This reflects the growing role of the food industry in providing the needs of the population in the most valuable food products.
The process of concentration continued intensively in all branches of the food industry, which is evident from the data of Table 4 (according to the data of the census as of January 1, 1964).