Mahindra & Mahindra is set to enter the branded oils and pulses category with NuPro. Adopting a farm-to-fork approach, it will source these commodities from farmers across Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
“We will enter the branded edible oil and pulses category with NuPro within a month. Coming from the house of Mahindra, these products will have stringent quality standards as we intend becoming a premium and niche player in this segment with the agri-business division targeting revenues of ₹1,000 crore this year,” said Ashok Sharma, Chief Executive, Agri and Allied Businesses, Mahindra & Mahindra.
Building a distribution network across the metro markets, to begin with, it would reach out to 500-800 outlets with its NuPro brand, and compete with established edible oil brands such as Adani Wilmar’s Fortune and Marico’s Saffola.
However, in terms of pricing, it would peg itself between Fortune and Saffola. “Our pricing would be less than that of Saffola but higher than mass edible oil brand of Ruchi Soya and Adani Wilmar,” said Sharma.
Being the largest brand in farm tractors, the $19.9-billion Mahindra Group entered the agri business in 2010 and has been in the B2B space selling grapes, potato, pulses, oilseeds, and dairy products besides providing services to farmers with its 200-odd Samriddhi centres.
“All this time we have mostly been in the input side of agri-businesses like seeds and chemicals but now we are looking at the B2C segment with branded products. Having launched a fresh fruit brand Saboro, we are now launching NuPro and this may be followed by a new brand for milk soon.”
However its rivals said the going will not be easy for M&M. Angshu Mallik, COO, Adani Wilmar, said, “Despite being a large player with deep pockets, Mahindra will face the same set of challenges in terms of building infrastructure, processing and supply-chain and competing with national and strong regional brands.’’