NEW DELHI, Sept 25: Logistics startup Rivigo plans to increase the number of its refrigerated trucks for transportation of fresh fruits and vegetables to 2,500 in the next five years, which would require an investment of about Rs 700 crore.
Presently, the Gurgaon-based company has 1,000 trucks, out of which 250 are refrigerated or reefer trucks. Its clientele includes Reliance Fresh, Adani Group, Aditya Birla Group as well as wholesale mandi players.
“Absolutely, we want to scale up our business. We currently have 250 refrigerated trucks for transportation of fruits and vegetables. Our plan is grow to 2,500 by 2021,” Rivigo Business Head (cold chain, pharma and FMCG) Sambit Sathapathy told PTI in an interview.
This would require an investment of around Rs 700 crore keeping in account the average cost of one reefer truck at Rs 30 lakh, he said.
Stating that growing demand for such vehicles would drive its expansion plans in the coming years, Sathapathy said use of reefer trucks helps in bringing down losses of fruits and vegetables in transit by up to 20-25 per cent.
“What makes us unique is that we have a ‘Driver Relay’ model to monitor remotely and customise the temperature mid-journey. We customise the settings for a kind of journey and we do it through our 45 hubs spread pan-India,” he said.
Also, these trucks run non-stop and there is 40 per cent reduction in transit time when compared to traditional trucks, he said, adding that this helps in bringing down the wastage.
Rivigo at present transports about 3,000 tonnes of fresh produce a month, including apples, plums, cherries, tomatoes, chillies, cucumber, pointed gourd, drumsticks and French beans, among others.
Sathapathy further said the company has seen success in transporting cucumber from Guwahati to pan-India. It has moved chillies from Azadpur mandi in Delhi to Mumbai and pointed gourd from Kolkata to pan-India.
“While the company is working with big retailers like Reliance Fresh and others, our biggest focus is the mandis as volumes are very large out there,” he said.
Normally, imported frozen foods, fruits and veggies are transported in reefer trucks in India. There is huge scope to tap the domestic market as India is the world’s second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, he added.
According to official data, the country has around 7,000 to 8,000 actively refrigerated trucks handling 3.6 million tonnes of perishable items.
At present, only 2 per cent of the country’s total vegetables and fruits output of 258 million tonnes is transported in refrigerated trucks.
Besides fruits and vegetables, Rivigo operates across segments such as e-commerce, pharma, textiles, electronics and consumer durables. (PTI)
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