Mother Dairy’s fruit and vegetable retailing arm, marketed under the Safal brand, is implementing a Rs 20 crore makeover of all its stores. Around 100 Safal stores are already donning a new look and the rest will be made over by the end of this year.
The Rs 900 crore Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Ltd is a 100 per cent subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board. They have redesigned the stores to provide more space, an easy shopping experience and to keep these clean and hygienic.
“We have made the interiors more contemporary and spacious. The layout has been rearranged to make the store look more elegant and the products easily accessible to the customers,” said Sunil Bansal, CEO.
There are about 400 Safal stores in New Delhi and another 100 elsewhere in the country. The new design was first tested at a store in Sarojini Nagar in October 2008 and, after a few modifications, is being implemented across all stores.
Analysts said Safal needed to concentrate on providing quality products. Purnendu Kumar, associate vice-president, Technopak, said: “Safal needs to address the issue of quality. It needs to be consistent when it comes to providing quality products. Not all the stuff at their store is of good quality.”
Profits in the green grocery segment are as high as 25-30 per cent, say analysts. Despite the product being perishable in nature, the effective profit comes out to be 20-22 per cent.
“The makeover was planned irrespective of any competition. India is a huge market, with a lot of untapped potential. Our focus is to reach out to as many markets as possible and consolidate our position in the existing ones,” he said. Kumar echoes this. “Products at Safal stores are reasonably priced and the easy availability of these stores makes them a success.”