Customers can enjoy over 120 directly farm-sourced fresh fruits & vegetables from Manchar, Kunjirwadi, Nasik, Wai and Ratnagiri

Bangalore August 1st, 2022: In its continuous endeavor to empower farmers and offer high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables to its customers, Amazon Retail India launched its 5^th farmer collection center in Kunjirwadi, Maharashtra. Amazon Retail India has four other farmer collection centers in Maharashtra including Manchar, Nasik, Wai and Ratnagiri and has a network of over 4500 farmers and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in Maharashtra to source locally grown fruits and vegetables. These collection centers assure farmers of fast payments, fair and transparent pricing, and recommendations on improving farm yield with the help of technology.

The new collection center at Kunjirwadi will be an addition to the fast-expanding produce value chain and will provide customers with a wide variety of high-quality fruits and vegetables (organic, exotic, seasonal, and leafy).

Rajesh Prasad, Category Leader, Amazon Retail India said, “Our mission is to enable local farmers across the region to leverage online marketplaces opportunity and become a part of fast paced digital economy. With this launch, and expansion of our farmer collection center network in Maharashtra, we are positioned to procure over 120 freshest and best quality regional fruits & vegetables straight from farms and deliver it to our customers. In Maharashtra alone, we have partnered with over 4500 farmers along with various FPOs to enable ease of selling their produce at our collection center network. As we grow, we continue to learn more about farmers and various supply chain possibilities, to build ideal infrastructure and scalable technology solutions that will help simplify end-to-end agri value chain from farms to our customers. Our collection centers are also the nodal point for extending services beyond procurement, which includes various training programs, providing agri inputs support to enhance farmers productivity, knowledge sharing and enable technology adoption.”

Speaking about her experience, Ms. Anjana Tukaram Kanade, one of our leading women farmers in Maharashtra from Kalamb Village, Ambegaon, Pune says “I am associated with Amazon Retail’s collection center since 2020 and have been regularly supplying cauliflower, cabbage, chilly and coriander. Assured payments and regular orders have helped me in improving my income with the support provided by agronomists that visit my farms regularly and guide me on different crops to grow, which have a regular customer demand on Amazon.”

(translated from Marathi)

Amazon’s farmer collection centers have a robust temperature-controlled supply chain infrastructure that provides the right starting point for high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables. After sourcing from farmers, Amazon uses state-of-the-art technologies to inspect and monitor the quality of fresh fruits and vegetables at multiple stages across its supply chain. The fruits and vegetables are sorted, graded, geotagged, and packaged in different sizes in well-aerated sustainable packaging materials at specialized processing center primarily focused at retaining freshness and quality attributes, which is then transshipped to Amazon Fresh fulfillment centers located closer to customers.