Punjab farmers entering new field to reap the retail harvest

The great Indian retail revolution seems to be catching on. First it was corporate houses and now it's the enterprising Punjab farmer.

Baljeet Singh Dosanjh, a farmer based in Doaba, has joined hands with other growers to launch Veggie Wonders, a retail chain of fresh food items. The maiden store covering 2,300 sq feet opened recently in Jalandhar. Dosanjh plans to come up with four more in the next few months.

So far the results have been heartening with 150 customers walking into this store every day. "The response is so good that we have now opened another Veggie Wonders outlet in the city," Dosanjh said.

What is most notable is the place and timing — Veggie Wonders opened around the same time as Reliance Fresh, both in Jalandhar. Dosanjh now claims the Reliance store has not affected his business and customers appreciate the high quality stuff sold at his store.

Another example is Sandhu Organics, a retail store selling organic food in Jalandhar's Model Town area. Owner Kulwant Singh Sandhu found it convenient to sell his own produce, which he grows in his fields in a nearby village. Sandhu plans to open a new outlet in Ludhiana. But he cautions that the retail business is tricky. "Better be the first than the best" does not always work in this field, he said. "I started my retail business around two years ago when organic food was not in vogue and people were not used to purchasing vegetables from a proper shop, but all that has changed," Sandhu said.

That explains why the Potato Growers Association of the district is all set to come up with its own fresh food retail chain. Group head Jaswinder Singh Sangha gave the business model: "We are a group of around 150 farmers with large tracts of land. We also have our own warehouses and a well-developed transport network. We will allot different crops to different farmers. So, one farmer will do tomatoes, while the other grows green chillies, for instance, to save us procurement hassles."

Namdhari Seeds, which started as a group of farmers growing crop on community land, is also making inroads into the agro-retail sector. "We already have a big farm in Malwa, now we are planning to set up a retail store in Ludhiana and Chandigarh," said Uday Singh, chairman of the Namdhari Group. The Namdharis already have 15 stores in Bangalore and five in Delhi.

Ask these farmers what's prompting them to jump into a field dominated by the powerful corporates, and they cite their expertise in the field and wide network. As Dosanjh puts it: "We have seen companies like Subikhsha and ITC setting up their retail stores in the region with goods that are far from satisfactory. It's not easy to run a supply chain. But as farmers, it would be easy for us to procure the best possible produce for the shop racks."

The trend is also going beyond raw food to cooked food. Sangha, for instance, owns the SubWay outlet in Jalandhar. Similarly, the McDonald's outlet in the city is owned by a prominent farmer.

Jalebi Junction and Glassy Junction, two of the most popular eating joints in Jalandhar and Phagwara, are owned by Manmohan Singh, a farmer of repute. Singh sums up the popular sentiment: "Why should we rein in our entrepreneurial potential? We know we can perform well in more than one field."