The article presents a methodological approach to the evaluation of innovative modernization of food industry and its constituent branches. The innovative modernization of the food industry is proposed to be understood as systematic improvement in all spheres of activity and in the state of the productive potential, the said improvement to be reached through the effective implementation of the results of innovation activity and providing fundamentally new level of production base. The innovation index is proposed as the criterion for assessing innovative modernization of food, this index being a numeric characteristic facilitating comparison of the effectiveness of modernization on an annual basis. It was found that most part of food industry branches feature low degrees of the efficiency of innovative modernization. To achieve strategic innovation development objectives as the basis of formation of agricultural and food policy, such priorities are denoted: lingering political and economic crisis, unstable fiscal and monetary policy, inflation, expansion of foreign producers the domestic markets, etc., these priorities being possible to be implemented only when negative phenomena in national economy would be overcome.