Metro Cash & Carry opens third store in Hyderabad

Metro Cash & Carry, as part of its long-term India expansion, today announced the launch of its third distribution centre near Shamshabad airport here.

The new wholesale distribution centre is the 17th for the Germany-based company in India. It plans to operate 50 such facilities in the country by 2020, with each centre attracting an investment of at least Rs 70 crore.

The new centre would help Metro expand its engagement with local producers (predominantly farmers) through increased localised procurement, and also provide farmers with doorstep procurement among other initiatives, the company said.

While the company did not share the details of its domestic business, its India managing director Rajeev Bakshi said the country figured among the key destinations offering new growth opportunities. Apart from India, China, Turkey and Russia remained the other priority markets for them, it said.

He said the pace of its expansion in India would see greater acceleration as the consumer preferences have been transforming fast led by increased discretionary spends. "We have developed a model that can be easily scalable,” Bakshi said. While maintaining focus on serving the kiranas in the country, it expects sales to hotels and restaurant segment to grow significantly in the future.

He also said the company was targeting higher procurement from local farmers, and was looking to export products from here to other states in the country. "We are sourcing the chicken produced in Telangana to our centres in Punjab. We are also considering many other products too,” he said. The company is procuring significant quantities of rice from farmers in Warangal, Nizamabad and Nalgonda in Telangana.

Some of the online groceries too have started procuring from Metro's distribution centres across India to service their customers, he said.