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Reliance Retail
Type Supermarket
Founded 30 October 2006
Headquarters Mumbai, India
Key people Mukesh Ambani, CEO
Industry Retail
Website [Link]

A Reliance Retail at Guntur.

Reliance Fresh is the convenience store format which forms part of the
retail business of Reliance Industries of India which is headed by Mukesh
Ambani. Reliance plans to invest in excess of Rs 25000 crores in the next 4
years in their retail division. The company already has in excess of 560
reliance fresh outlets across the country. These stores sell fresh fruits and
vegetables, staples, groceries, fresh juice bars and dairy products.

A typical Reliance Fresh store is approximately 3000-4000 square. feet and

caters to a catchment area of 1-2 km.

[edit] History

Post launch, in a dramatic shift in its positioning and mainly due to the
circumstances prevaling in UP, West Bengal and Orissa, it was mentioned
recently in news Dailies that, Reliance Retail is moving out of stocking
fruits and vegetables. Reliance Retail has decided to minimise its exposure
in the fruit and vegetable business and position Reliance Fresh as a pure play
super market focusing on

categories like food, FMCG, home, consumer durables, IT and wellness ,

with food accounting for the bulk of the [Link] company may not
stock fruit and vegetables in some states. Though Reliance Fresh is not
exiting the fruit and vegetable business altogether, it has decided not to
compete with local vendors partly due to political reasons, and partly due to
its inability to create a robust supply chain. This is quite different from what
the firm had originally [Link] the first Reliance Fresh store opened
in Hyderabad last October, not only did the company said the store’s main
focus would be fresh produce like fruits and vegetables at a much lower
price, but also spoke at length about its “farm-to-fork’’ theory. The idea the
company spoke about was to source from farmers and sell directly to the
consumer removing middlemen out of the [Link] Fresh, Reliance
Mart, Reliance Digital, Reliance Trendz, Reliance Footprint, Reliance
Wellness, Reliance Jewels, Reliance Timeout and Reliance Super are
various formats that Reliance has rolled [Link] addition, Reliance Retail has
entered into an alliance with Apple for setting up a chain of Apple Specialty
Stores branded as iStore, starting with Bangalore.

[edit] ControversY…Recently their stores in Jharkand faced the ire of

mobs comprising of local vegetable vendors. They vandalised and
attacked the stores claiming that they were stealing their
livelihoods.[1]In August 2007, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Mayawati ordered to close 10 new stores keeping view of Law &
order situation. In November 2007, Reliance Fresh stores are
attacked by Bharatiya Janshakti Party supporters headed by Uma
Bharti.

‘Suicide’ squad against Reliance Fresh outlets

Bhubaneswar: Traders and roadside vendors opposing the opening of

Reliance Fresh outlets in Orissa on Saturday formed a “suicide” squad.“As
many as 100 youth today joined the squad as they prefer to die while
fighting rather than facing starvation,” All-Orissa Roadside Vendors and
Small Shop Owners Association president Pratap Sahu said.[2]Reports said
the vendors formed the squad soon after a meeting. — [Link] some
vegetable vendors don't want a job at Reliance, if offered one, because they
want to be their own boss.

Growth through Value Creation

With a vision to generate inclusive growth and prosperity for farmers,

vendor partners, small shopkeepers and consumers, Reliance Retail
Limited (RRL), a subsidiary of RIL, was set up to lead Reliance Group’s
foray into organized retail.

With a 27% share of world GDP, retail is a significant contributor to

overall economic activity across the world. Of this, organized retailing
contributes between 20% to 55% in various developing markets. The
Indian retail industry is pegged at $ 300 billion and growing at over 13%
per year. Of this, presently, organized retailing is about 5%. This is
expected to grow to 10% by 2011. RRL has embarked upon an
implementation plan to build state-of-the-art retail infrastructure in India,
which includes a multi-format store strategy of opening neighbourhood
convenience stores, hypermarkets, specialty and wholesale stores across
India.

RRL launched its first store in November 2006 through its convenience
store format ‘Reliance Fresh’. Since then RRL has rapidly grown to
operate 590 stores across 13 states at the end of FY 2007-08. RRL
launched its first ‘Reliance Digital’ store in April 2007 and its first and
India’s largest hypermarket ‘Reliance Mart’ in Ahmedabad in August
2007. This year, RRL has also launched its first few specialty stores for
apparel (Reliance Trends), footwear (Reliance Footprints), jewellery
(Reliance Jewels), books, music and other lifestyle products (Reliance
Timeout), auto accessories and service format (Reliance Autozone) and
also an initiative in the health and wellness business through ‘Reliance
Wellness’. In each of these store formats, RRL is offering a unique set of
products and services at a value price point that has not been available so
far to the Indian consumer. Overall, RRL is well positioned to rapidly
expand its existing network of 590 stores which operate in 57 cities.

During the year, RRL also focused on building strong relationships in the
agri-business value chain and has commenced marketing fruits, vegetables
and staples that the company sources directly to wholesalers and
institutional customers. RRL provides its customers with high quality
produce that has better shelf life and more consistent quality than was
available earlier. RRL has made significant progress in establishing state-
of-the-art staples processing centres and expects to make them operational
by May 2008.

Through the year, RRL also expanded its supply chain infrastructure. The
Company is fully geared to meet the requirements of its rapidly growing
store network in an efficient manner.

Recognizing that strategic alliances are going to be a key driver to its

 retail business, in FY 2007-08, RRL established key joint ventures with
international partners in apparel, optical and office products businesses.
Further, RRL will continue to seek synergistic opportunities with other
international players as well. This year, RRL will continue its focus on
rapid expansion of the existing and other new formats across India.

Date of
2006
Establishment
Revenue Not Available
Rs. 370,687.7 crores (April 11, 2008) (Reliance Industries
Market Cap
Ltd.)
Reliance Industries Limited, Makers Chambers - IV,
Address
Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021, Maharashtra, India
Chennai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Mumbai,
Branches
Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Orissa, UP and West Bengal
Mukesh D. Ambani - Chairman & Managing Director
Nikhil R. Meswani - Executive Director
Hital R. Meswani - Executive Director
[Link] - Executive Director
Ramniklal H. Ambani
Mansingh L. Bhakta
Management
Yogendra P. Trivedi
Team
Dr. D. V. Kapur
M. P. Modi
S. Venkitaramanan
Prof. Ashok Misra
Prof. Dipak C Jain
Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar
Overview Reliance Fresh falls under Reliance Industries. It is the first
retail venture of the Group. The company offers fresh fruits
and vegetables, staples, groceries, fresh juice bars, FMCG
products and dairy products and non-vegetarian items.
Reliance Industries has invested nearly Rs. 3,000 crores to
expand the Reliance Fresh stores. Reliance Fresh directly
buys stock from the farmers to cut down on the wastage. The
stores work on The Ranger Format which means selling of
fresh vegetables to the road sellers. Reliance Retail has
signed a pact with Apple for the establishment of a chain of
Apple Specialty Stores branded as iStore, starting with
Bangalore