Retailers need to keep food business separate from others

Retailers that fall within the purview of FDI policy of Food Product Retail Trading (FPRT) will have to keep their food-only venture separate from other businesses, despite several of them asking for a relaxation of restrictions, said top government officials.

Last month, food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said she met officials from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to push for a slackening of rules that require retailers, including Amazon, to keep separate inventories for food products and other businesses. Badal said operational roadblocks were delaying Amazon’s $500 million food retail venture in India. Amazon is the only global company, which has chosen to enter India’s food-retailing market through its food-only retailing policy, which will allow it 100% ownership in retail ventures to sell food products to consumers, through both online and offline routes, provided it sells items that are sourced and packaged in India.

However, DIPP issued a clarification, saying, retailers will have to keep an inventory of food products “physically separate and readily distinguishable” from the inventory of its other businesses whether in the front-end or in warehouses. Although DIPP said retailers, which have existing infrastructure such as manpower and warehouses for their mainline businesses, can use the same for their food-only ventures, they would have to maintain a separate book of accounts and records (including sales records), separate bank accounts and separate invoicing for both.

Source:-https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/retailers-need-to-keep-food-business-separate-from-others/64969654

World Chocolate Day at Hotel Marine Plaza

Social x Hydrofarm: Soil Less Organic Microgreens Workshop at Versova Social

Comments

0