bigbasket, India’s largest online supermarket, continues to clock about 18 per cent of its value turnover from fresh fruits and vegetables (F&Vs). The retail major sources over 70 per cent of its produce directly from the farmers as part of its Farmer Connect programme, something that has enabled bigbasket to forge ahead of the competition in the F&V space.
The company’s efforts have always centred around its customers ensuring that they get the freshest produce. In its most recent initiative, bigbasket is working towards deepening its technology for better traceability and visibility of its F&V produce to customers.
bigbasket began its operations in 2011, and F&V has been an integral part of the assortment from day one. Since then, its F&V business has seen a double-digit growth rate on a month-on-month basis.
The company has set up over 25 collection centres across the country to source over 5,000 tonne of produce per month.
By transforming the supply chain into a value chain, the company has already brought 5,000 farmers and 10,000-plus acre of cultivated land, growing over 30 different varieties of F&Vs, under its umbrella.
Speaking about this, Vipul Mittal, national category head - F&V, bigbasket, said, “On an average, bigbasket is able to deliver farm-sourced vegetables to its customers in about 12 - 24 hours, which is the best in the industry.”
“This is made possible by disintermediating the complete supply chain on the basis of the technology-led platform operated by bigbasket,” he added.
“We have created a platform for direct information and material exchange between the farmer and the consumer. Thus, there is complete transparency at each step of the chain, right from collection to packaging and delivery,” Mittal said.
bigbasket has always strived to put its farmers and customers at the forefront. The company guarantees an instant and remunerative payout to farmers and ensures safe, fresh and best quality of harvest to consumers at competitive prices.
As a part of its customer-centric programme, bigbasket is introducing an annual sale called 15 biggest days - the lowest price sale. Under this, the company is offering deep discounts on a wide range of products, including fruits and vegetables.
bigbasket has a retail presence in 25 cities and services a customer base of over 70,000 on a daily basis.
Complementing the effect of the collection centres (CC), bigbasket’s very own distribution centres (DC), equipped with state-of-the-art storage equipment, ensure the preservation of freshness and quality of farm produce.
Specifically-designed packaging, temperature-controlled storages and appropriate transport environment ensure that there is no compromise on quality at bigbasket.com.
New retail-led agricultural markets are changing the face of services and activities en route from farm to table. The future holds a lot of promise, not only for the farmers, but also for the quality-starved consumers.
