Sanjeev Kumar Asthana (PRM 5)
President & Chief Executive- Agri & Food Supply Chain
Reliance Retail
Professional Achievement
Mr. Sanjeev Asthana has been given the mandate to start from scratch an agri supply chain business for Reliance Retail which will connect the ‘farm to fork’ and provide impetus to rural economy of India.
This challenging assignment will see him guiding wide range of business initiatives across Rural Financial Services, Farm Inputs, Rural Merchandising, Farm Output Sourcing and Supply Chain of Fruits & Vegetables, grains, oils, plantations, poultry, sugar, salt with an expected turnover of $10 billion by year 2010.
Prior to Joining Reliance Mr. Asthana was Director on the Board of Cargill India and was heading the Grains & Oilseeds business of Cargill in India. He has also worked with UP Dairy Federation, STC, Britannia and ITC
He has a varied global experience which includes assignments with ITC in Romania to set up operations, Indonesia as their Country Head and with Cargill at their Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.
He took up the challenge to set up an independent business for Cargill in India in 1998. He was responsible for setting the direction and providing the leadership to steer Cargill through its ambitious expansion and growth plans in India. At the decision making position in the Cargill, first MNC to start domestic trading at the pan India basis. Under his able leadership Cargill grew as major force in grain handling in country, with dominant presence in food grains, feed grains, and oilseeds. He was instrumental in establishing a world class supply chain and giving strategic direction to Cargill in India.
From negligible volumes in 1998, Cargill today handles 500,000 of wheat, 500,000 tones of Soya meal, 200,000 corn, bajra and other feed grains. They exported around 2.5 million tones of food grains in 2001-03. Business growth was more than 100% every year with profitability higher than any other player in the same industry.
Game Changers
Sathi Krishi Samadhan Kendra an ambitious band end integration network was launched which has village level reach in MP, UP and Rajasthan. This platform helped farmers in disintermediation and better price discovery of their produce. The Zero investment model was value creating venture for Corporation (Farmer Reach and better quality), Franchise since he gained good returns at very low investment, village youth (employment was generate at local level) and farmer (Better price realization). This network helped Cargill to dominate the wheat markets.
Supply chain of Fruits & Vegetables, Dairy, staples and processed meat is an unexplored territory, and the linkage of these supplies to Retail stores is even a bigger task. Under his leadership Reliance Retail is not only integrating this business but at a scale not imagined by anybody in this country.
The Reliance Retail Agri and food supply chain project envisions revolutionizing the entire farm economy by setting up of Rural Business Hubs (RBH) which would meet the farm input, consumer goods, and basic services needs of the rural households. The RBH would also provide a platform for output sales at market driven prices thus enabling greater pie of consumer spend to reach farmer level. RBH would generate employment opportunities at the grass root level. This would result in not only bringing economic prosperity but also better quality of life
Reliance Retail has a target of achieving turnover of 1000,000 crores by year 2010. Out of this 40% will come from sales of food products. He took up the task to create a network which will integrate the food chain of grains, oils fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat products which will efficiently service the requirement of reliance retail.
This will be the biggest network of its kind any where in the world, creating value for stakeholders at all levels.