Walmart India has said that it is willing to evaluate its options of food retail in the country once clarity on FDI policy guidelines on marketing of food products domestically produced emerges.

Speaking at the sidelines of the launch of Walmart India’s programme for women entrepreneurship development, Krish Iyer, President and CEO Walmart India, said: “It (FDI) is a progressive step. I think bringing in more retailers into food retail will eventually benefit the farmers in terms of better realisation and getting technical inputs. It will also benefit the customers in terms of lower prices. As far as we are concerned, we are waiting for the policy guidelines and will evaluate and study the policy. We will take appropriate decisions at the appropriate time.”

Replying to a query on pure play food and grocery retail concepts, he said many retailers have food and grocery formats around the world and this is an interesting development in the Indian context.

The company currently operates 21 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in nine States.

It is now looking to expand to other States such as Haryana and Karnataka as it has plans to open 49 additional stores by 2020. “We are on track with our plans. It takes a minimum of 30 months to open a store depending on how fast one gets approvals and whether the construction is on time …among other factors. The pipeline building process is on and we have a healthy pipeline,” he said.

The company, which opened its 21st store in Agra in 2015, will open its next store in the fourth quarter of next year. Iyer added that the company will continue to focus on its B2B e-commerce platform. Walmart India has also been receiving membership requests from e-commerce players and said it is processing these requests.

Walmart India on Wednesday launched its entrepreneurship development programme for women-owned businesses with the first batch of 32 women entrepreneurs, which is being implemented in collaboration with WEConnect and Vrutti.

Iyer said, “This initiative is designed to help women entrepreneurs achieve higher levels of business growth and help make them more competitive in today’s dynamic business environment. We hope this will create a pipeline of women suppliers for the industry as well as for Walmart India.”

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