Future Value Retail, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pantaloon Retail, is planning to open standalone ‘Farm Fresh’ stores, which will sell only fruits and vegetables in neighbourhood locations. This is on the lines of the Safal fruits-and-vegetables chain run by Mother Dairy.
As part of the new plan, the company is also planning to expand its fruits and vegetables retail business within its Food Bazaar retail format. “Although we sell fruits and vegetables in Food Bazaar, the category is not as big as other categories. Besides revamping the existing Farm Fresh stores, we are looking to open dedicated stores for this category. The move is aimed at cornering maximum sales and increasing contribution of the category in Food Bazaar’s annual revenues to 10 percent in the next two years from now,” says K Radhakrishnan, President, Future Fresh Foods.
Currently, the group sells fruits and vegetables at about 191 Food Bazaar outlets across the country. The company aims to dedicate an area of 1,000 to 2,000 square feet only for food and vegetables within the store.
The new format is already in place in Kolkata, where it is sourcing 60 percent of the produce directly from farmers. Similar exercise will be followed in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai, by March next year.
Posted on: 1.12.2010
Source: www.economictimes.com
