FHEL initially started with an investment of Rs 100 crore for its pilot project to procure and trade apples from Shimla and Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. In the first year of its operation, it fully utilised the 12,000 tonnes capacity of its controlled atmosphere (CA) facility at Rai, near Delhi. The company will now include other fruits like pears, mangoes and cherries, in order to diversify its fruit basket.

“We will review our plans for pan India fan out towards the middle of 2008,” said Rakesh Mehrotra, managing director, Concor. “We have plans for 13-14 CA facilities, maybe of smaller size, depending on the type of fruits available, total local demand for that fruit and fruits from other regions. Depending on size of CA stores, investments will be in the region of Rs 1,000-1,500 crore in the next phase.”

FEHL will soon be signing an agreement with Bharti-Wal-Mart Retail for supplying fruits for its pan-India operations. Refusing to divulge details of its commercial agreement, Mehrotra said it is already in talks for tie-ups with other retail chains like Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha and Mother Diary for their nationwide operations.

He added that it will take two to three years for that to happen. Also on the cards are tie-ups with food processing industries to market a small percentage of fruits to be processed into jams, jellies and juices.