ITC to take Fresh pop-up stores to 32 new locations - Financial Chronicle
September 04, 2011
ITC plans pop-up stores for Fresh, its flagship Fresh food wholesale and retail initiative, across 32 locations in the country. "This will be taken up after the pilot project in Hyderabad has steadied," said S Sivakumar, CEO - agri businesses of ITC.
Under the project, the company has Fresh pop-up stores in about 50-gated communities and apartments in Hyderabad. Hotels, restaurants and food processing institutions are the mainstay of Fresh, which supplies them with fresh vegetables and fruits.
A pop-up store is a temporary store that helps buil-ding up customer interest as well as the brand. The store pops up on a scheduled date offering a no-frill shopping experience to customers sa-ns the usual infrastructure and other retail paraphernalia it is cost-effective for the company as well.
"Pop-up stores are a viable option to get the best produce to the consumers at the best price as there no overheads. Customers relate pop-up stores to ITC Fresh stores," Sivakumar said while announcing the upcoming Food 360 degree conference in November.
Though its pop-up stores in Hyderabad are fairly successful, he said the company would now reach out to more urban dwelling units in the city before exploring other cities. Initial pilots have also been done in Chandigarh and Pune to understand market differences. ITC is focusing on good farming practices like reducing use of fertilisers and chemicals in farm produce. On the other hand, it also has pure organic products, priced higher and duly certified, for exports.
Though individual commodities supply will vary depending on supply issues, the overall growth is likely to be good, Sivakumar said, adding that ITC's agribusiness is robust with a diversified portfolio that is supported by company brands as well as domestic and international customers.
E-choupal, ITC's farmer outreach initiative has been tweaked recently to disseminate prices to farmers through mobiles, he said. ITC has 6,500 e-Choupal outlets covering 40,000 villages. "There have been a number of market reforms that have slowed down the growth of e-Choupals. The growth will be in line with the reforms happening," he said.
