UA Agrocoop enters Chennai market

By Our Economy Bureau | 19 Aug 2004

Chennai: With the city becoming a major centre for apples in southern India, the Uttaranchal-based UA Agrocoop has started marketing apples here.

Pricing its apples at Rs40 / kg, the UA Agrocoop intends to bring about 600 tonnes to Chennai till October end. The city gets around 400 tonnes of apple every day. "We have signed an MoU with the Uttranchal government to build, operate and market a 1,000- tonne apple collection, grading and packing centre at Naugaon, Uttarkashi," says Benny. managing director.

According to him the company has hired a cold storage in Chennai so that apples could be distributed to other parts of Tamil Nadu. "We also plan to hire a cold storage in Tirupur to serve cities like Coimbatore."

After setting up procurement centres in Uttaranchal, the company will start marketing fruits like orange, hill lime, apricot and lychees from October.

Showering praise on the Uttaranchal government, Benny says that for the first time in Indian history, a state government, Uttaranchal , has passed a government order allowing a company to mortgage a government-owned cold storage facility for a limit of Rs1 crore for 10 years. UA Agrocoop has leased the government-owned Matela cold storage for 15 years.

UA Agrocoop has signed an exclusive three-year agreement with Horticulture Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation Limited (HPMC), the marketing arm of Himachal Pradesh government to market apples in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. The company has also leased a 365 acre-horticulture research farm in Nagaland.