Determinants of Profitability of Food Industry in India: A Size-Wise Analysis

Profitability is the profit earning capacity, which is a crucial factorin contributing to the survival of firms. This paper is a maidenattempt at estimating the impact of size on profitability, consideringthe ‘size’ as the control variable. For this purpose, the selectedfirms are classified into three size categories as ‘small,’ ‘medium,’and ‘large’ based on the sales turnover. The results show that volatilityand growth are the major predictors in determining profitabilityin case of small size firms while growth is important in determiningthe profitability of medium size firms. Capital intensityhas a significant positive coefficient with the profitability of largesize firms. The overall result shows that the larger the size of thefirm, the more the investment in long lived assets has helped toincrease the profitability of the firm unlike the trend in cases ofsmall size and medium size firms.