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Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Pvt Ltd (MDFVPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) under its Safal brand will open fresh fruits and vegetables outlets at three petrol pumps in Bhubaneswar on Monday.

Dilip Rath, Chairman, NDDB, said, "Union petroleum and oil minister has proposed this idea of having fruits and vegetables outlets in petrol pumps to make fuel filling centres as one-stop shopping centres. We worked out on a business plan and implementing it for the first time in Odisha."

The pilot project aimed at providing fruits and vegetables to consumers at affordable prices at the same time provide market linkage to vegetable growers and give them a fair price for their produces.

Rath said, "Initially the board will procure fresh fruits and vegetables from vegetable growers’ associations. Farmers in Odisha get only 30% of the consumers’ price, which we are aiming to increase up to 60%. This initiative will give a fillip to the sector."

He said that Odisha produces 25% less vegetables than the national average and 50% less fruits than the national average.

He added, "Despite having huge potential in the fruits and vegetables sector in terms of productivity Odisha is largely dependent on its neighbouring states. Unlike other states Odisha has plenty of ground water and favourable weather conditions for vegetable growing."

The board has also plans to provide training to farmers and help them with best farming practices from across the country through agronomic intervention for key horticulture crops like banana, parwal, tomato, brinjal, chilli and lady finger.

The NDDB chairman said, "Apart from ensuring quality and hygienic fruits and vegetables to consumers Safal will also promote farm producer organisations which will streamline quality procurement and also give remunerative prices to them. We have plans to include over 1000 growers from different districts under the project."

Mother Diary has also plans to expand the outlets to more filling centres in coming days.

Rath said, "If we get good response then we would expand in the state and will also replicate the model in other states. The state has over 1500 filling centres so if they will provide us space we will open similar outlets in other filling centres. "

This is for the first time Safal opens its outlets outside New Delhi and NCR where it has 380 outlets and 20 outlets in Bengaluru.

S Nagarajan, MD and Director of Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable, has resigned from the company.

Nagarajan has had a seven-year stint at the top after joining Mother Dairy from Philips in 2010. Sanjiv Khanna, former MD of Mother Dairy and who is currently serving as CEO of SBC Beverages Ghana (marketers and manufacturers of PepsiCo products), is being brought in to replace Nagarajan.

Khanna was MD of Mother Dairy for one year between 2009 and 2010. A company spokesperson confirmed the development.

The Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) that markets dairy products under brand Amul is seriously exploring possibility of buying fresh vegetables and fruits directly from farmers in the villages from where it procures milk on daily basis.

Apart from milk, homegrown dairy giant Amul will now procure and sell fruits and vegetables at their outlets.

For this, GCMMF has roped in the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to carry out technical evaluation of the project.

To begin with, Amul is looking to start selling vegetables and fruits in Ahmedabad where it runs over 200 parlours.

R S Sodhi, Managing Director, GCMMF, said, "On January 26, we had signed a MoU with Gujarat government to help farmers get better price for their agri produce."

Amul may replicate the Delhi model of Safal that is engaged in retailing of fresh fruits and vegetables along with value-added products, he said.

The proposal came up for discussion during the recent board meeting of GCMMF in which chairman of all the 17 district dairy unions of Gujarat who are member unions of the federation had participated at Palanpur.

Jetha Patel, Chairman, GCMMF, said, "We are studying the procedure on how to start procurement and marketing of different vegetables including tomatoes, cauliflowers, brinjals, onions among others."

He added, "If we succeed in our study, the vegetables will be marketed under brand Amul and will be procured by our member unions.

This will not only benefit the vegetable producers but also benefit consumers as the role played by middlemen will get eliminated. Producers dealing in horticulture will get better price while consumers will get the agri produce at affordable price with trusted brand name of Amul."