Juicy offer: 10% off on grapes, watermelons at Hopcoms

A variety of grapes and watermelons will be available at a 10 per cent discount from February 22 to March 21 at all Hopcoms outlets in Bengaluru.

The discount was announced at the grape and watermelon fair that kicked off at Hopcoms, Lalbagh, on Wednesday.

Eleven varieties of grapes are on sale, including Bengaluru Blue, Krishna Sharad, Super Sonak, Jumbo Sharad, Indian Red Globe, and Australia Red Globe. The majority of grapes on display are sourced from Vijayapura, Bagalkote and Koppal districts. Hopcoms employees expect to sell between 400 and 500 metric tonnes of grapes this season.

Three varieties of watermelon, Kiran, Namdhari, and yellow watermelon, are on sale. Hopcoms employees expect to sell between 800 and 1,000 metric tonnes of watermelon this season.

The purpose of such annual melas is to enable farmers to earn better rates for their products, and buyers to avail themselves of fresh products at optimised prices, said N Devaraju, president of Hopcoms, Bengaluru.

“Storing them in cold storage units will strip them of their quality and taste,” he added. The idea is to provide fresh grapes and watermelons reaching the godown every morning directly to the customers.

Chickpet MLA Uday B Garudachar inaugurated the fair and Munirathna Naidu, Minister of Horticulture and Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics of Karnataka, joined him.

Fair on for two months

The fair will run until the end of the grape/watermelon season, about two months from now.