DSCL to tie up with retailers for sourcing

NEW DELHI: In a bid to leverage the anticipated retail boom, DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd (DSCL) is planning to tie-up with retail majors to source fruits and vegetables from farmers and supply them to retail chains. The company has started doing so for Food Bazaar, Subhiksha and Spencer last year and now wants to scale up rapidly.

The company is working to add value at all levels of the supply chain: procurement, aggregation, grading and transportation. It is also setting up a warehouse at Kota in Rajasthan, which is critical in the business of perishable items like fruits and vegetables.

“We are working at strengthening the supply chain so as to achieve scale in this segment,” DSCL chairman Ajay S Shriram told ET The company is also looking to explore new markets. Last year, its offerings were mostly sold at retail stores in National Capital region.

The sourcing and supply initiative is an extension of DSCL’s Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar initiative and the company hopes to leverage its links with the agricultural community for this initiative.

“We supply agri inputs, goods, and services to the farmers. We want to work with them in helping them sell their output,” said Mr Shriram. DSCL, which has interests in sugar, chemicals and fertilisers, set up its first “Hariyali” store around three-and-a-half years ago and at present has 50 stores in rural areas of UP, Uttaranchal, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan.

It has now decided to scale up rapidly and establish a national presence with 200 such stores in the next two years. These stores, generally managed by agronomists, provided agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilisers and farming tools, besides consultancy to the farmers. A Hariyali store attracts around 400 footfalls on an average day.