Origin Fresh sells Japanese apples in Pune, and the question of what goes on that shelf

India's premium produce brand Origin Fresh has opened its first store in the Koregaon Park area of Pune, the gateway to West India. It's the Bengaluru-founded company's first step outside South India, and its shelves carry Korean pears and Japanese Sun Fuji apples. For Japanese fruit makers and dried-vegetable businesses, this is not distant news from India. It's a concrete story about distribution: "a shelf for premium produce has opened up in India." Who can Japanese agricultural products be sold to, where, and in what form? Starting from the moves of one company, Origin Fresh, we draw out an approach that can be put to use directly.

What happened at the first Pune store

What Origin Fresh opened in Koregaon Park is its first permanent store in West India. Koregaon Park is an affluent area of Pune known for its concentration of restaurants and boutiques, and the location itself tells you the target customer base. The store doesn't stand alone as a physical shop; it operates as an omnichannel setup bundled together with its own app, website, and various quick-commerce platforms. It carries more than 250 SKUs across fruit, vegetables, and daily goods, of which more than 150 are said to be specially selected, exotic varieties sourced from producers at home and abroad.

Among the imported items are Korean pears, Japanese Sun Fuji apples, cotton candy grapes, and yellow dragon fruit. It also carries hydroponic lettuce, promoting pesticide-residue-free produce grown with deep water culture (DWC) technology. Co-founder and CEO Prashanth Vasan said, "Pune is the first step in our West India expansion strategy, and there is a big opportunity to build a solid presence in this region."

Why is a Bengaluru produce store moving west now?

Origin Fresh is a company founded in 2020 by Prashanth Vasan and Sidharth Raveendran. It has raised about $4.13 million to date and has run stores in Bengaluru, Mysuru, and Chennai. This move into Pune marks the first time it has extended its footprint, until now confined to South India, westward.

What the company holds up are freshness promises such as "within 12 hours of harvest" and "Fresh or Nothing," along with a proprietary feature that lets buyers choose fruit at their preferred ripeness. It puts freshness and quality ahead of price, managing quality across five stages: sourcing, sorting, handling, storage, and delivery. It is setting out to compete on ground different from the existing sabzi mandis (produce markets) and mass retailers that fight on cheapness. Pune wasn't chosen by accident; it's a city with a dense cluster of IT and manufacturing with high disposable income, where consumption of premium imported fruit as something that "works both as a gift and for personal use" is taking root.

The numbers behind India's growing imported apple market

India grows apples in large volume domestically, but the pattern of relying on imports for premium fruit continues. Apple import volume for the 2025/26 season is projected at about 643,000 tonnes, a sharp rise from about 511,000 tonnes the previous season. Imported apples are perceived as "premium" for their quality, appearance, and keeping well, and demand is visible in modern trade and HoReCa (food service and hotels).

Another point not to overlook is the expanding container of distribution itself. India's quick commerce is projected to grow from about $5.48 billion in 2024 to about $12.97 billion by 2029, and the average order value in the fruit and vegetable category is said to have risen about 30% year over year. The reason Origin Fresh is designed to ride not just its own app but multiple quick-commerce platforms is to pour premium produce into this expanding container. For Japanese fruit, this means an entry point is being prepared that covers both physical shelves and app delivery at the same time.

How it is being received locally and in the industry

In Pune's affluent areas, retail sources have been vocal in framing imported fruit as "the star of gift demand." The perception is that its visual appeal and long shelf life make it something people feel comfortable using for gifts and events. On the other hand, reaction from price-sensitive segments has remained firm that it's "too expensive for everyday use," and premium stores like Origin Fresh clearly operate on the premise of segmenting toward the upper crust of personal consumption plus gift demand.

From within the industry, there is a welcoming view of the "visualized traceability" that comes from promising, in concrete numbers, pesticide-residue-free status and time elapsed since harvest. India's produce distribution typically passes through several layers of middlemen, and origin and freshness tend to get blurred along the way. When a brand that can speak to "how it was grown, when it was picked, and how many hours it took to deliver" enters that picture, it creates a reason to be chosen beyond price. The variety stories and cultivation history that Japanese fruit carries fit directly into this context.

A Concrete Move Japanese Companies Can Make

Rather than a bird's-eye market argument, the question here is what can actually be done with Origin Fresh. The first move Japanese fruit makers and dried-vegetable businesses should take is not fresh fruit but proposing "a long-shelf-life processed product" for this brand's shelf. Fresh produce such as Sun Fuji apples carries a high bar of cold-chain logistics and freshness management, making it a heavy first deal for a new entrant. Dried apples, dried pears, and dried vegetables, by contrast, can be shipped at room temperature with low inventory risk, and can sit on the shelf without undermining the brand world Origin Fresh has built around quality and freshness. The company's category of "over 150 specially selected, exotic varieties" is precisely an assortment built around the value of novelty, and there is room in it for Japanese dried fruit.

The structure of the proposal can also be made concrete. First, turn the fact that Origin Fresh already carries Japanese Sun Fuji apples to your advantage, and build a narrative around "a gift-oriented processed product made by drying fruit from the same growing region," sold alongside the fresh lineup, positioning it as a year-round item that fills the gap during the fresh produce's off-season. Second, working from the company's omnichannel setup, bring in separate designs for a gift package for the physical store and a smaller pack for app delivery. Small one- or two-serving packs, sized to the price band growing in quick commerce, are exactly the kind of design Japanese D2C businesses have already honed at home. Third, in line with the "pesticide-residue-free, traceability" that Origin Fresh puts at the core of its value, prepare from the outset a single English-language document that tells the story of the growing region and drying process. This becomes the deciding factor in whether you get adopted at all, not just a point in price negotiation.

Ripple effects on the industry and market

What Origin Fresh's move into West India shows is that premium produce retail in India is shifting from "an experiment confined to South India" into "a business rolled out across cities." If the company's plan, which has an eye on a 200-store supermarket rollout across Bengaluru and Chennai, moves forward, the total number of shelves carrying premium imported produce will grow in stages. This means not just a single trading partner but a partner growing into one you can roll the same pitch out to across multiple cities and multiple channels.

At the same time, Origin Fresh is also an early example of retail differentiating not on "cheapness" but on "a story of freshness, history, and variety." The more stores compete on this axis, the more fertile the ground becomes for Japanese fruit and dried vegetables' strengths, an easy-to-tell cultivation history, varietal branding, careful processing, to be recognized. Conversely, the old-style Japanese sales approach of pitching with just a price list and a catalog won't resonate with this kind of retailer. What's called for is a proposal that speaks to "how our product fits into the world your brand has built."

Related Information and Where to Look Next

For food businesses considering entry into India, local developments around produce and agricultural products are also being tracked in separate articles. For a view of fresh commodity trade with India, such as potatoes, the article covering Fanidhar's case is a useful reference, and the spread of processed and organic categories can be confirmed concretely in the article on The Organic World's expansion. For how a Japanese brand can enter the beverage category, the article on Calpis's India debut can be read as an example of how to translate a brand's brand story into the local context.

If approaching Origin Fresh directly, the place to start is checking the company's app and in-store assortment firsthand, to map out what price band and packaging existing imported fruit is sold in. Once you know where competing imports sit on the shelf, a proposal for where to place your own dried processed product right next to them becomes far more concrete.

Summary: What to Do Next

Origin Fresh's move into Pune is practical news for Japan's high-value-added fruit and dried vegetables: "one more concrete shelf has opened up." If you're going to move, there's an order to it. First, check the price band and packaging of imported fruit at the company's store and app firsthand. Next, propose not fresh fruit but room-temperature-shippable dried apples or dried pears, paired with an English-language document on growing and processing history, for the "specially selected variety" slot. Then bring in, at the same time, two versions designed separately in size and price, one for in-store gifting and one for quick commerce. Starting from one company, one shelf, one product is the way into this market that doesn't waste the shot.

Sources

• Business of Food: Origin Fresh enters West India with its first fresh produce store in Pune's Koregaon Park
• Entrepreneur India: Origin Fresh Opens First Fresh Produce Store in Western India
• Indian Retailer: Origin Fresh Gets $1 Mn to Expand Fresh Produce Retail Network in India