Reliance Retail ropes in former Amul chief RS Sodhi to drive grocery biz

In January, Sodhi stepped down from the role of MD of GCMMF

Reliance Retail, the retail arm of Reliance Industries (RIL), has hired RS Sodhi, former MD of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), a report by the Times of India (TOI) said.

Sodhi is expected to help Reliance Retail build its grocery vertical, especially in the fruits and vegetable space, besides helping its consumer brands segment. The company has been aggressively increasing its presence in the segment. Recently, it has launched a wide range of products, from beverages under the Campa brand to home items.

The conglomerate had earlier hired former Coca-Cola India chairman T Krishnakumar.

Sodhi is an industry veteran who worked with GCMMF for 41 years. He stepped down from his role in January. He was then the managing director (MD) of the federation. Before that, he was the general marketing manager in the 2000s.

For more than three decades, Sodhi worked under the direct guidance of Verghese Kurien, the father of the White Revolution. He obtained a bachelor's degree in agri-engineering from CTAE, Udaipur, and he is among the first-batch alumni of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (Irma).

During the pandemic, Amul launched over 100 stock-keeping units under Sodhi's leadership.

It also launched from immunity-boosting milk in turmeric, ginger, and tulsi variants. It added sweets like mohanthal, barfi, kaju katli, and laddoo to Amul's catalogue. So far, Amul has launched more than 100 products across dairy and non-dairy categories since Covid-19.

GCMMF procures 30 million litres of milk daily from over 18,600 village dairy cooperative societies.