123Pune.com

PUNE, APR 11: Reliance Retail launched operations in Maharashtra with four Reliance Fresh outlets in Pune, on Wednesday. Another four outlets are slated to open in different parts of the city in May.

Reliance Fresh will be going to 18 cities in the state with a network of 125 stores, which will become operational in the next six months, said Guninder Kapur, CEO, Reliance Retail said. The four outlets in Pune currently occupy 19,000 sq ft.

In the first phase, the company will be going to five cities including Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Solapur, followed by Kolhapur and Akola.

Currently, the stores will vend fresh fruits and vegetables, groceries, dairy products and staple foods. Kapur said the company was looking out for stores with separate entrances, so that they could begin to sell non-vegetarian food items in three months’ time. A separate counter will be set up for selling Reliance branded products under the label ‘Reliance Select’.

Reliance will be sourcing produce from the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) and has obtained a Grade A licence for the purpose.

This would enable them to source directly from the farmers. A cash-and-carry format store which is slated to be launched in Bangalore soon, would be set up in Pune soon. Reliance has so far acquired 2,75,000 sq feet of space across 109 Reliance Fresh stores. Kapur said that they were planning to launch different types of stores in Pune, including hyper marts and specialty stores. Pune will have 25 Reliance Fresh stores in the next six months out of the total rollout plan for 40 stores.

Reliance has 109 stores in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Gujarat.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=160882