Food from Farm to Fork by Heritage Fresh Supermarket

In a time when food adulteration rate is increasing faster than the rate of literacy, it becomes imperative to change your food habits. Choosing a brand can be hard as there are only a few names in the industry which do justice to the delivery of fresh and healthy food commitments. Heritage Fresh retail chain by Heritage Food is one brand you can really place your bets on.

With its focus on ‘fresh’ perishable products, the Heritage Fresh retail chain follows the farm to fork model. Jagadish Krishnan, Chief Operating Officer – Retail and Bakery Divisions, Heritage Foods Limited, delves into the company’s growth over the past seven years.

The retail chain has 70 stores which are spread across the country. Its major presence is in Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. Heritage Foods was born out of The Heritage Group which was founded by Shri Nara Chandra Babu Naidu. With starting the company, he had aimed to deliver ‘fresh and healthy’ food products.

Heritage Fresh was propelled in November 2006, at first under the brand name Fresh@; the first arrangement of pilot stores opened in Hyderabad. Subsequent to experiencing a few changes in the plan of action that pointed principally on the perishable classification (which now represents 33% of the organization’s business), the retail chain was renamed as Heritage Fresh. Today, Heritage Fresh is a present day general store stocking around 7,000 SKUs, with its center quality originating from perishable items, for example, dairy, fruits, and vegetables.

Jagadish Krishnan, COO, Retail and Bakery Divisions, explained, “We have made significant back-end investments in the perishable categories. Till date, we have invested about Rs 300 cr in our retail business.”

Heritage Fresh clocked a turnover of Rs 7 cr in FY 2006-2007 and in FY 2012-2013, it registered a turnover of Rs 327 cr. The company is expecting revenue of Rs 400 crore by the end of FY 2014. Its cumulative warehouse area covers 1.4 lakh sq ft and stocks about 6,000 skus and 7 days of inventory.

Heritage Fresh has around 2.3 lakh square feet of exchanging space and wants to expand it to 6 lakh square feet in the following 3 years. According to the organization’s arrangements, New Heritage MART position 15,000 square feet stores will be dispatched in the following two quarters.