A Reliance Fresh outlet that took off in Hyderabad on Friday. (AFP)

Hyderabad, Nov. 3: Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail today formally opened for business with 11 grocery and vegetable outlets in Hyderabad.

The launch may have been small and low-key but the group’s ambitions are huge.

“We aim to capture a Rs 1,000-crore market in the first year,” said Raghu Pillai, president and chief executive of operations and strategy. He added that the retail market in India was growing at 8 per cent annually.

“What we have launched today are not just stores but a significant engagement with the Indian farmer,” said Pillai. He said the group intended to take the retailing juggernaut to 784 urban towns, over 6,000 rural mandis with 68 nationwise distribution centres and occupy over 100 million sq feet of commercial space, he said.

Put that in perspective: Kishore Biyani’s Future Group, which owns Pantaloons Retail — the largest retailing entity in the country, aims to set its footprint in about 150 towns and cities in the next five years.

Ambani said the pilot launch of Reliance Fresh was part of an effort to bring farmers and consumers into a win-win partnership.

Besides the price factor, Reliance Fresh would offer the Indian housewife what she has always wanted: quality and service. Pillai said the stores were just the front-end of a significant chain of services and products providing the end user with a “freshness of the fields”.

He said Rs 10,000 crore has been earmarked for setting up the supply chain, procurement centres and outlets out of the corpus of Rs 25,000 crore set aside for the project.

He said there was a proposal to involve small-time vendors and kirana stores also in the operations to reach fresh products to households.

“We will have separate collection centres for them and a few of them have already started operations in Hyderabad,” he said.

Terming it as partnership with small traders, Pillai said it was an attempt to eliminate the middleman.

He said to cater to a sizeable section of customers, the Fresh shops will also have a separate non-vegetarian section with quality products sourced from handpicked nationwide locations.