Saturday, August 11, 2012

“It’s a misnomer that organized retail will have a negative impact”

S. Viraraghavan, Director, Sales and Marketing, Cargill India shares nitty gritties in an exclusive interview to B&E

Cargill India is an active player in food, agricultural sourcing and commodities trading in India. S. Viraraghavan, Director, Sales & Marketing, Cargill India has some unique yet significant points to make about the sector’s present and future



B&E: How do you think the government should deal with a fragmented supply chain which escalates costs of food processing in India by 15-30%?

SV: The biggest challenge is to build overall supply chain infrastructure, namely, augmentation of warehousing & storage capacity (especially, cold storage), reduction of wastages due to multi-point manual handling and inadequate primary & secondary packaging of basic food grains, better transport infrastructure and seamless linkages between farm and retail.

B&E: With different policies, high excise duties and lack of coherence in doing trade between various states in India in processed food, how does Cargill India deal with the situation and how can it be improved?

SV: We’re part of food processing business at a mass level with major participation in the cooking & refined oils business. We have been able to, more or less, nullify the impact of different taxes & duties by operating at standard operating prices for consumers and to a great extent for trade as well. Situation can be further stabilized by having a common VAT structure across the country. GST would be a significant step in improving business environment here.

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