Experience Fresh buying with Reliance

Hyderabad: Reliance Industries will formally open the 'Reliance Fresh' retail store on Friday that seeks to make buying vegetables and groceries a lifestyle experience at neighbourhood market prices.

The store at the city's upmarket Banjara Hills is the first of several retail formats that RIL plans to rollout in the coming days.

"The (Reliance Fresh) store is for everyone... prices are affordable for everyone," RIL President and Chief Executive (Foods Business) Gunender Kapur said last week after unveiling the Reliance Fresh brand.

Reliance Fresh, the retail brand for selling farm fresh products like vegetables and fruits, besides frozen foods, groceries and cutlery, completes the farm-to-fork project cycle initiated by RIL as part of its agriculture initiative.

The farm initiative involves procuring agri products through hubs in various states, establishing a supply chain and providing logistics and finally retailing the products.

The Reliance Fresh brand would have another variant – Fresh Plus – which in addition to vegetables and other edibles, sell apparels too.

The whole exercise of creating a separate identity was initiated by Nita Ambani, wife of RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani, as she felt that the business needed an independent brand rather than piggy back off RIL's image.

Reliance's retail blueprint envisages a nation-wide chain of hypermarkets, supermarkets, discount stores, department stores, convenience stores and specialty stores at an investment of over Rs 25,000 crore in the next five years, with an initial investment of around Rs 3,375 crore.

The Reliance Fresh outlets would typically occupy 2,000-3,000 sq.ft. of space, while the other formats would be spread over a much larger carpet area.

RIL expects the retail business, which would be headed by Manoj Modi, to yield Rs 90,000 crore in revenue by 2010.

"By this year-end, there would be 300 stores and in three years, 4,000 stores," a company official said.

Industry estimates suggest that India's retail industry is worth $300 billion (Rs 13,50,000 crore) and could grow to $427 billion in the next four years. Of this organized retail accounts for just over Rs 35,000 crore.

The sheer potential for organised retail in the country, with a population of 1.1 billion including a 300 million- strong middle-class, makes it an attractive market for foreign retailers who have reached saturation point in other markets.

Reliance has undeniably gained a substantial lead over foreign retailers like Wal-Mart, whose India plans have been put on hold due to the government's reluctance to open the sector for FDI.

So far, the government has allowed 51 per cent FDI only in single-brand retailing.

While this is so, other domestic players like Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Group are also on the verge of entering the segment, albeit through partnership with overseas retail giants.

Reliance, however, has preferred to go it alone using expertise available in-house.