NEW DELHI: ITC on Tuesday unveiled its plan to expand its fruit and vegetable retail and wholesale business by opening 54 new outlets called `Choupal Fresh' in select metros in the next three years. The company will be targeting metropolitan cities for these wholesale-cum-retail stores.

"We will set up 54 `Choupal Fresh' stores in the next three years," said ITC Chairman, Y. C. Deveshwar, who was here to attend "Sustainability Summit: Asia 2006" organised by the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development in partnership with the Ministry of Development Alternatives.

ITC has three-four Choupal Fresh outlets in Hyderabad and Pune. The first one was opened in August this year in Hyderabad.

ITC's urban warehousing and cold chain infrastructure focuses on stocking fresh horticulture produce like fresh fruits and vegetables.

The company plans to increase the number of its rural malls `Choupal Saagars' by nine in the next six months. These `Choupal Saagars' are rural hypermarkets, which provide multiple services under one roof. They serve as a platform for the farmers to sell their produce directly and get immediate payment. Farmers can also buy quality product for their farm and household consumption from `Choupal Saagars' and access services of soil testing, banking, insurance, medical facilities and restaurants. At present, the company has 11 such rural malls in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The company proposes to set up one `Choupal Saagar' for every 40 e-Choupals in synergistic combination to serve as the core infrastructure to support ITC's rural distribution strategy.

Nine `Choupal Saagars' are supposed to spread over other e-Choupal States of Haryana, Uttaranchal, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

There are 6,500 e-Choupal kiosks in over 38,000 villages in nine States.

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