IIM-A brings its expertise to vending greens

Can management expertise help the vegetable grower and the vendor? The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is set to launch a retail ...

Can management expertise help the vegetable grower and the vendor? The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is set to launch a retail chain that promises vendors the advantage of systematic marketing and buyers the advantage of fresh vegetables.

Prof Girija Sharan of the institute’s Centre for Management in Agriculture, and head of the project, said: ‘‘The idea behind this pilot research & development project is to develop a system to deliver clean and fresh vegetables to consumers…This will also allow vegetable and fruit-growers and vendors to get better returns.’’

The idea struck Sharan when he saw neatly packed fruit and vegetables from New Zealand and Australia stacked at greengrocers’. ‘‘People in Ahmedabad are ready to pay for quality. So why not offer them good quality products from our own land at reasonable rates?’’

Value-addition, says Sharan, is the key. ‘‘We add value in terms of ensuring that customers get fresh, clean vegetables and fruit, while entrepreneurs get a chance to earn a reasonable profit.’’ The ‘‘value-addition’’, for now, takes place at a vegetable treatment unit that Sharan has set up on campus. He has designed a machine for cleaning 10 kg vegetables at one go. The vegetables are put inside a steel cylinder netting that is submerged in a basin of water and rotated. The cleaned vegetables will be packed at the on-campus unit and retailed under the ‘Clean ’n’ Fresh’ label.