IndiaRetailBiz

The Hyderabad-based, Chandrababu (Ex CM Andhra) family owned Heritage Foods, a dairy products’ major, has launched three fresh@ stores in Bangalore. While ‘fresh@’ already has 12 outlets in Hyderabad, it has decided to set up atleast 100 fresh@ retail outlets in the South India by end 2007, 30 of which will be in Bangalore alone. The company has identified over 30 properties in residential areas of Bangalore with a view to launch three to four fresh@ stores every month. ‘fresh@’ expects to also enter Chennai within a couple of month. It has planned to set up about 100 stores at an investment of Rs.150 crore. Plans envisage these 100 stores to be evenly distributed among the three states of Andhra, Karnataka and Tamilnadu.

Typically spread over 3,000 square feet of retail space,  roughly 40 per cent of which is occupied by fruits and vegetables, ‘fresh@’ operates within the highly crowded ‘daily home needs’ neighbourhood segment. To distinguish itself from its many competitors, however,  ‘fresh@’ will make ‘home delivery’ as its main selling plank by leveraging on the existing network of 2,900 agents involved in the distribution of dairy products. In fact, it expects to garner as much Rs.150 crore of the estimated Rs. 300 crore 2007-08 turnover of 300 crore from home delivery business. All customers placing orders worth more Rs. 200/- or more will be entitled to ‘free’ delivery of merchandise at at homes. The company will soon set up a dedicated call centre and an e-portal to bring the convenience of shopping to the doorsteps of the customers.

Heritage Foods, which currently clocks an annual retail turnover of Rs 100 crore from retail, is banking heavily on its back-end linkages, which it has developed with the farmers. It expects to increase current acrage dedicated to its operations from 500 to 5,000 during this year.