Heritage Foods in retail foray with Rs 150 cr

In a major diversification move, Hyderabad-based Heritage Foods Private Limited, a Rs 300-crore dairy products company, has launched its 'fresh@' retail chain.

It plans to set up 100 stores at an investment of about Rs 150 crore focusing on the three cities of Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore in the New Year.

The company's USP for its retail business is not price and quality, which has become commonplace for large retail businesses, but the home delivery service.

Expecting close to 30 per cent business coming from the home delivery platform, the company has introduced a system of delivering daily need products at home while offering three 3-hour windows "" early morning, afternoon and late evening "" for consumers to chose at a minimum order of Rs 200. The consumer can also pay the bill through his credit card at home itself.

Addressing a press conference in connection with the official launch of their first store here, M Sambasiva Rao, president, Heritage Foods, said the company had synergised its existing logistics, milk producer and retailer network with the backend requirements of the retail chain business in a win-win proposition.

"We are also looking at taking this forward to rural retailing, our forthcoming foray into ," he said. According to him, the company is looking at Rs 300 crore revenues from the retail business.

Heritage Foods, which processes and distributes about 7 lakh liters of milk every day, has a network of over 40 milk chilling centres, 2,900 distribution points along with 2.5 lakh farmers who sell milk to the company.

It has taken up cluster farming in about 400 acres in Chittoor and Kolar districts to source fresh vegetables and fruits for its retail business.

"We are fully geared up to handle home delivery from day one both at frontend and backend. Home delivery in a way is expression of customer's confidence in our brand wherein he is assured of the same quality and freshness without spending time at the store," S Jagadish, vice-president Heritage Retail said.

Besides, the company is betting big on private labeling in food products under the brand name "Farmers Pride" as an independent business, he said. The company plans to open 45 of the proposed 100 retail stores in Hyderabad.