Mother Dairy to open 50 new safal stores this fiscal

Looking to expand its fruit and vegetable business, leading milk supplier Mother Dairy plans to open 50 new Safal retail outlets by the end of the current fiscal in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Bangalore.
Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable, established in 1974, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). The company's business is divided into 4 segments - milk, dairy items, Dhara edible oils and horticulture through Safal brand and outlets.
The product portfolio under Safal brand includes fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen vegetables, juices and processed food items such as jam, pickle and tomato ketchup.

At present, the company has 400 safal outlets in Delhi- NCR and 30 stores in Bangalore.
"We will be adding 40 stores by the end of year 2014-15 mainly in NCR cities like Gurgaon, Noida and Gaziabad. Besides it, we will also add 10 more stores in Bangalore," Pradipta K Sahoo, Business Head (Horticulture) Fruit and Vegetable, Mother Dairy, told PTI.
Sahoo added that the horticulture division turnover has jumped to Rs 635 crore in the last fiscal from Rs 530 crore in 2012-13.

Mother Dairy procures fruits and vegetables from 15 states through 110 associations, which together have 10,000 farmers as members. It has a state-of-the-art facility in West Delhi from where all the products are distributed.

Safal outlets are being operated on the franchise model, where the company provides basic infrastructure, he added.
The company is focusing a lot on mangoes, he said adding this season it will also offer the fruit from Odisha.
The company has been running the campaign on safe Mangoes for last few years and using totally chemically free ripening process, he said.
"We are the second biggest producer of mango pulp in the country, which is also exported," he added.