Aditya Birla acquired Trinethra to launch hypermarket in Mysore

Trinethra Super Retail Ltd, an Andhra based food and grocery chain retail chain, the majority stake (90%) of which was recently acquired by Birla Retail, a Rs. 40,000 crore Aditya Birla Group retail venture, is going ahead with its earlier plans of launching a few hypermarket stores in Bangalore, Coimbatore, Chennai, and a few tier-two towns of south India. These hypermarkets, as reported earlier, will be launched under “Fabcity” brand name.

The first of the FabCity hypermarket in Mysore, according to plans, is slated to go on stream in the third week of January, 2007. Fabcity in Mysore will be a 50,000-sq ft retail facility, stocking a range of products for sale under various categories, including, food, grocery, apparel, cosmetics, consumer electronics, home appliances and home products.

Prior to takeover of the chain by the Aditya Birla group, the retail chain had drawn up plans to have about 230 stores, by March 2007, in southern India, under Trinethra and Fabmall brands comprising; 103 stores in Andhra, 56 Fabmall stores in Karnataka, 43 Fabmall stores in Tamilnadu and 26 stores in Kerala.

Trinethra is expected to achieve a turnover of Rs. 360 crore by March, 2007.

Mark Pi to open 300 “Crazy Noodles” restaurants

The U.S. based $100 million Chinese food major Mark Pi, which promises to serve low-cost wholesome food, has planned an investment of Rs. 80 crore, to open 300 restaurant outlets in India, in the next five years. This large network has been planned as the demand for chinese food, which is the second largest selling cuisine in the country, is huge. The chain, had entered India in March 2004 with two 30-seat restaurants in New Delhi’s Saket and the Noida suburb.

Mark Pi’s products in India, will be marketed under the brand name of “Crazy Noodles.” According to company sources, ingradients for these products to ensure taste and food quality will be sourced from China, Japan, Malaysia and other oriental countries.

In Gujarat, the chain has set up three restaurants at Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Surat and is adding seven more soon. In these restaurants, keeping preferences of its customers in mind, the chain will offer exclusively vegetarian fare including an exclusive garlic and onion-free Jain menu. It may be interesting to note here that even Pizza Hut had set up its first exclusive vegetarian restaurant in the world in Ahmedabad.

The Ohio-based retail chain, which is now among the top five Chinese restaurant chains in the US, was founded by its owner, Korea-born Mark Pi in 1972. It has about 50 outlets in the US. Mark Pi holds a record in the Guinness Book as the world’s fastest human noodle maker – 4,096 noodles in 41.34 seconds.

Wal-Mart plans flexible work schedules

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, has plans to move many of its 1.3 million U.S. workers to flexible work schedules based on the number of customers in stores at a given time, reports UPI.

The move, which will employ a computerized scheduling system is expected to improve productivity and customer satisfaction.

The unions, which criticised the plan, say that the company is trying to shake up workers’ lives, forcing them to be available to work fluctuating shifts each week and some have alleged that the system could be used to pressure them to quit by forcing them to expand their availability or be laid off.

Wal-Mart defends reputation through Ad campaign

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, which faces a lot of public ire, particularly from politicians, labour unions and other activist groups in the US, about its pathetic labour policies and pushing small businesses out of town, has decided to take its case straight to the public by running a series of television ads on national channels. These ads praise its record as an employer and corporate citizen, reports AP.

Wal-Mart was the focus of two high-profile but unsuccessful efforts last year to legislate how it treats employees. Wal-Mart has been talking, for months, about its record to the media but has not been able to stem the rot.

The campaign will emphasis key points:

• It creates tens of thousands of jobs a year,
• Offers employee health plans for as little as $23 a month,
• Saves “the average working family” more than $2,300 a year through its low prices, and
• Is a major contributor to local charities with donations last year totaling more than $245 million.

“Wal-Mart is living in a bizarre state of denial, where no matter how bad their public reputation is, they still believe that a tired ad campaign can fool the American public into believing it is OK to exploit millions of working families,” said Chris Kofinis, spokesman of a Union-funded campaign group reacting to the news.

Wal-Mart, it may be recalled, has recently tied up with telecom major Bharti for its retail foray into India.

Registrations at Metro Cash & Carry

Our earlier posts on Metro Cash & Carry, elicited a lot of response from our readers who wanted to know the procedure for making purchases from Metro C&C distribution centers in India.

Metro C&C, the world leader in the self service wholesale business, has distribution centers located in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata in India. These centers are currently offering 18,000 agri-based and grocery items to small vendors and registered bulk users at wholesale, or even less, prices to bulk consumers.

The procedure to obtain the Metro Business Card, which is free and valid at all Metro distribution centers across the globe, appears to be quite simple.