Hypermarket signs deal to deliver vegetables fresh from farm to table

PETALING JAYA: Consumers can now expect nine farm fresh produce at lower prices now that GCH Retail Malaysia Sdn Bhd has signed a five-year contract with Agroto Sdn Bhd for fresh vegetables to be sent directly to its outlets nationwide.

GCH Retail CEO Datuk Tim Ashdown said this would benefit those who shop for the nine vegetables under the O’Fresh brand at its outlets in Giant, Cold Storage Supermarkets, Mercato and Jasons Food Hall.

He said GCH Retail served two to three million customers a week at its Giant outlets nationwide and customers had conveyed that the quality of fresh produce was important to them but they wanted the price to be good too.

“We hear this,” he said in his speech during the launch of the partnership yesterday.

For this reason, they cut down the middleman chain to enable produce to be sent directly and quickly to retailers, which ensures freshness while saving some costs, he said.

Ashdown said a cabbage for instance, cost RM2.69 per kg in the market and that would come up to RM4 per cabbage but with their competitive pricing, consumers could get theirs at RM3 per cabbage at their outlets.

With the current global economic challenges, it was all the more important that they keep prices affordable for consumers, he said.

They would distribute the produce to Giant stores in Kota Damansara, Shah Alam, Kelana Jaya, Batu Caves, Bandar Kinrara (Puchong) and USJ 1 and would expand accordingly to all its 40 stores in peninsular Malaysia.

The nine types of vegetables that would be supplied from Kinta Highlands, Perak, were cabbage, Beijing cabbage, tomato, capsicum, kyuri (Japanese cucumber), chilli, lettuce, little gem and radish.

Agroto chairman Ahmad Shalimin Shaffie said the Agroto farming project was a joint-venture with the Perak state government.

Ahmad, who is also Perak Agriculture Development Corporation Group director, said more than 40.5ha had been developed in Kinta Highlands for the first phase, out of a total 80.1ha land to be developed with Agroto.

He said the state government still had more than 800ha for integrated farming to be developed.

Agroto CEO Chai Meng Tat said they were currently supplying 200 to 300 tonnes of produce to GCH Retail and would increase production month by month.