Godrej arm to open branch in Chandigarh

Encouraged by the response of its "Nature's Basket" stores in Mumbai, Godrej Agrovet Ltd is planning to open an outlet in Chandigarh.

Nature's Basket houses vegetables, fruits and herbs, both local and exotic, dairy products, packaged juices, non-vegetarian items, cheese, organic foods, cakes and pastries, imported cereals and salad, among other things.

Spread over an area of 2,000-3,000 square feet, Nature's Basket will have value-added services like home delivery and an in-house nutritionist, who will give guidance and detailed information on the nutritional value of products to customers.

The whole idea of these stores is to give consumers, residing in the urban areas, farm fresh produce.

Talking to Business Standard, Executive Vice-President R S Vijan said, "We have worked in close association with farmers for over 35 years, helping them develop their produce. We now feel that the time has come to introduce our consumers in urban areas to fresh farm produce. A local farm produce store with a global appeal, that's what Nature's Basket is all about. Currently, we have three such stores in Mumbai and a fourth one is ready to be opened in a few days in Thane. Each store is expected to give a turnover of Rs 3-4 crore annually. We are planning to open one in Chandigarh, after we open our store in Delhi. Chandigarh has a high literacy rate and people are highly health-conscious."

However, he did not specified any timeframe for the opening of the store. The Rs 1,000 crore Godrej Agrovet is the largest seller of animal feeds in India has a presence in poultry, oil palm plantation, agricultural inputs and plant biotechnology.

Vijan says that the concept of Nature's Basket is farm to plate, which means that the consumers are assured of fresh farm produce. It has a healthy mix of global and locally available products. The stores would be selling all the kitchen products and also have an in house nutritionist who will provide advice on the healthy and nutritional diet.

The stores would also offer home delivery, as there are a large number of working couples in urban areas that do not have time to shop for vegetables and fruits after reaching home.

The idea of Nature's Basket was to consolidate all the products under a roof so that consumers no longer had to look for places to buy exotic stuff. Nature's Basket also sells dairy products and packaged juices like XS and Sofit that are manufactured by Godrej.

Amongst the imported products, the store stocks breakfast cereals, salad dressings and other such food products.

He said that India is currently in the midst of a major retailing wave. Though the retailing is at a nascent stage, it is currently growing at 15-20 per cent. If this growth is sustained, the share of organised retailing will rise to 6 to 10 per cent by the end of this decade.

"We would also be retailing organic produce through the outlets, as we believe that there is a huge market for organic food. But there are certain factors like price wise they are costly. There is a need to create awareness among the people about the organic food. Moreover, physically also they are unattractive. When we test-marketed organic chikoos and coconuts, the sales response was slow as customers were not ready to pay the price differential of 15-20 per cent between organic and non-organic fruit," he explained.