The Hindu Business Line : Bharti to disclose retail venture plans on Oct 10

Bharti Enterprises on Wednesday said that it would announce details of its retail venture on October 10 and was in talks with international and domestic companies in this regard.

"Our retail venture will be a joint venture between either a domestic or an international company. The retail venture will not be on a cash-and-carry basis, but a franchisee," said Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, on the sidelines of the inauguration of its research and development centre here.

He also denied rumours that it was on the verge of signing a deal with Tesco for its retail venture.

"We are still in talks with Tesco and the deal has not been finalised as yet. We are also talking to three international companies for our retail venture. And everything will depend on whichever gets finalised first," he said.

According to the market buzz, Bharti is also in talks with Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Carrefour SA.

Cold chain system

Meanwhile, industry sources said that Field Fresh, in which Bharti is a 50 per cent stakeholder, was also in talks with three international companies for the creation of the much-required cold chain to support its after-production-time leading to final exports. "The company is talking to three international companies, Samsung, Mitsubishi and an American firm, for a tie up in order to set up its cold chain systems," the sources said.

On the retail venture, Mr Sunil Mittal said that once it took off, it would not stop sourcing fruits and vegetables to other domestic retailers. "We do not want to keep ourselves limited. So even though we will have our own retail venture we will source out our products to domestic retailers such as Pantaloons and Reliance also," he said.

Bharti is also ready to start exporting 80 tonnes of fruits and vegetables through the recently set up perishable centre at the Amritsar airport. It was also looking at starting exports from the renovated centre at the Delhi airport.

Field Fresh has an initial outlay of $50 million for its first phase of operations via collaborative farming (contract farming). The company has over 4,000 acres under cultivation and is looking at extending it to 20,000 acres soon. When quizzed about the exact investment that would be required leading up to the 20,000 acres, the source said that an estimated Rs 1,10,000 per acre is required for cultivation.

Field Fresh inaugurated its first research and development centre, Agri Centre for Excellence, spread over 300 acres here. The R&D centre has 211 acres of open cultivation and micro irrigation test and control facilities in 50 acres. The centre was inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh.