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Look who's turned super cool!

Neighbourhood kirana stores have undergone a makeover and turned into mini supermarkets to meet the growing demands of their upwardly mobile clientele, finds SANGEETHA DEVI. K

PHOTO: SHASHI ASHIWAL

GOURMET'S HUNT Food shopping gets simpler as new-age general stores try to keep pace with super markets

It's close to 8 p.m when Rashmi Singh, who works as a HR manager in an MNC, drives into the lane leading to her apartment in Begumpet. She has to make a few purchases though before she heads home. She stops by at a kirana store and picks up diary products, canned fruits, olive oil, and some ready-to-eat packed foods among other items. "This shop has most of the essential items and it's convenient for me. I needn't battle the traffic and go to a supermarket. But yeah, when I need exotic pasta sauces, cooking wines or chocolate syrups, I make a trip to one of the supermarkets," she says.

Makeover magic

The storeowner Alam Hussain couldn't be happier. He belongs to the tribe of general merchants who realised that their stores needed a makeover to survive amidst the cluster of supermarkets mushrooming all over the city. So, the dusty interiors and unclean cereals and pulses were replaced by swanky new interiors and clean, packed foods. Such mini supermarkets dot the bylanes of many areas in the city - Begumpet, Sainikpuri, Ameerpet, Maredpally and Tarnaka to name a few.

"Hussain offers, "I remodelled my store a year ago. I started getting what people in this neighbourhood need. Beyond groceries, people look for different kinds of oils, pastas, marmalades and breakfast cereals. Now I can say that the store has almost everything that a Trinetra or a Food World has and our diary products and vegetables are even better."

The mini supermarkets have an edge in diary products and vegetables. Apart from regular vegetables, some of them have started getting limited quantities of broccoli, lettuce, basil leaves and parsley too. The savvier ones even get you organic cereals and pulses, sun dried mushrooms and tomatoes! Since their stock is limited, there's no fear of stale produce.

Of course, supermarkets have their loyal clientele that who look for niche products. The Achilles' heel is the failure to remove products that have long lived their expiry dates. When we visited a few supermarkets, we found breads, breakfast cereals, tofu and cheese spreads, pasta sauces and even namkeens that have long outlived their shelf life. When questioned, the store in-charges apologised and promised to remove the items. Are routine checks a thing of the past? Well, most store managers claims that they scan their products on a daily basis!

On the whole, the mini supermarkets stand to gain with working professionals depending on them. Chetan Mallik, a communications service analyst in an MNC, says, "These stores accept Sodexo passes, stock frozen vegetables and meat and are willing to offer door delivery services even if you need only a couple of items."

The bigger stores are trying to offer products that suit regional flavours. Pickles and spices from different regions are on offer and packed in quantities that you require then and there. But still, the neighbourhood stores sail along. "When I need new tenants for my apartment, all I do is inform the nearby storeowner. He in turn informs people who are looking for a house. No supermarket can match this true value added service," smiles Deepa Kamat, a homemaker who lives in Motilal Nehru Nagar.

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