National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), the central government agency engaged in various agriculture commodities procurement under minimum support price, in collaboration with Tirupati Cooperative, has opened its first grocery store in the name of NAFED Bazaar in Gurugram, Haryana.

The NAFED Bazaar in Gurugram is an initiative of women cooperative society in Uttarakhand. It is a pilot store of NAFED and Tirupati Cooperative and the joint venture plans to open nine more stores in various States. It will employ mostly women or differently-abled people as staff. The store will sell pulses, rice, organic food items, different variety of tea, health foods, spices and pickles besides all other grocery brands, said Shilpi Arora , President, Tirupati Cooperative.

Also read: Online grocery segment set to touch $18 b by 2024: Report

The store offers several inaugural discounts including three per cent discount for all serving armed and police force personnel. It will also give one cloth bag and a kg of sugar free of cost for the first 100 women on purchase of ₹1000. All customers will get one kg sugar free on purchase of ₹1000 till July 31.

NAFED’s network

NAFED has a network of over 20 grocery stores and plans to open about 200 stores under the franchise model, under the same name NAFED Bazaar by the end of this financial year across States.

The venture targets to increase farmers income and get farm-produce directly to retail consumers, said Dr Bijender Singh, Chairman, NAFED, while inaugurating the store.

The company currently operates ten retail outlets under the name of Nafed Bazaar — eight in Delhi and two in Shimla. All of these are company-owned.

The store is also into institutional sales of grocery products to hospitals, hotels and government departments. NAFED initially wants to focus on Delhi and adjoining towns, where it already has a developed supply chain before moving to other cities, said Singh.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW