In its continuous efforts to ensure that consumers get timely access to essential goods, the Retailers Association of India (RAI) along with its partners, including the government have implemented the ‘Food Soldiers’ Project to overcome the present-day supply situation amid the coronavirus lockdown.
'Food Soldiers' are all those individuals engaged in the supply, storage, retail and delivery of essential products who are going the extra mile to ensure consumer needs for food and essentials are met.
The ‘Food Soldiers’ project is a strategic approach with three main objectives: 1. Optimising the supply chain for retailers of all sizes including kiranas 2. Ensuring that there is adequate staff in the stores and 3. Ensuring that consumers get timely delivery of essential goods in the comfort of their home.
Modern retail has de-grown by 30-40% in the last 15 days due to supply chain problems, shortage of manpower with attendance below 30% and lower customer entry due to social distancing. Presently, consumers are buying pure low margin items and hence the reduced sales give a margin of around 12% against the normal 21%. Hence, a more responsive and unhindered supply chain, the ability to urge all personnel to work and creating a sense of 'Food Soldiers' in the minds of people in the essential items supply chain, is important to mitigate the issue.
Compulsory direct home delivery is not viable in a country where e-commerce is only 2%. However, considering the large network of Kirana stores of close to 12 million, Indians are not as severely impacted as the rest of the world for access to daily need items. Considering the acute shortage of manpower due to the exodus of workers and travel restrictions during the lockdown, offline stores are finding it difficult to manage walk-in customers and home deliveries at the same time.
To ease the situation and reduce bottlenecks in the supply chain, the RAI has formed effective WhatsApp groups across states which entail participation from the public (government officials) and private entities (big companies/retailers).
Furthermore, steps are being taken to deploy the workforce that is employed with non-food retailers in the stores that are selling essentials to overcome the shortage of manpower. RAI is also in discussions with online food delivery firms like Swiggy and Zomato to tie-up with retailers for the last-mile delivery of essentials.