Future Group is extending its vision more towards the neighbourhood stores across India via franchise route. The company has set its urban and rural convenience store retail formats under KB’s Fair Price and Aadhar on an expansion spree, inviting franchisees widely. Damodar Mall, Director, Food Strategy, Future Group, said, “KB’s Fair Price and Aadhar are being recognised as neighbourhood store brands and have established operations. Entrepreneurs can run these formats as they are now effective as neighbourhood stores and are profitable.”
With 85 company-owned stores, KB’s Fair Price has the highest concentration of outlets in Delhi. “Through the franchise route, we intend having 300 additional outlets in Delhi with almost 500 outlets across the other metros,” he added. Besides Delhi, the retail outlet is having presence in Mumbai and Bangalore.
As for Aadhar, an acquired rural distribution format from Godrej, it is also poised for a franchise concept having undergone a pilot test in the recent past. “We did conduct a pilot for the Aadhar outlets and are now ready to launch franchisee stores. We have been training franchises on how to run self-service stores and the ways of doing traditional trade. Just like KB’s Fair Price, Aadhar is also like a store down the street in rural India,” added Mall.
Aadhar would be expanding its outlets in Gujarat and Punjab with almost 100 new outlets planned through franchises. “Just like our Big Bazaar format has undergone a transformation in the last 10 years, we also expect the convenience store formats to do the same,” he said.
The Future Group would be pushing its private labels in the food, home and personal care segment through its convenience stores. “We expect nearly 30 per cent of sales to come from the private labels at our convenience stores,’’ added Mall.