Metro Group Buying, a division of Metro Cash & Carry, is looking at ramping up sourcing of food products from India for its global operations.

In addition to the European continent, it is expected that the India will also be a critical sourcing hub for Metro Group's operations in Asia. Metro has around 100 wholesale stores in this region.

In 2003, the Buying arm had sourced goods worth euro 48 million from India for its stores worldwide. The division is expected to hike this substantially during the current year. The division has sourced euro 3 million so far in the current year.

Metro Cash & Carry which has its Indian operations based out of Bangalore, will be one of the key catalysts for this process especially in the food sector.

Over the past five years, Metro Group Buying has been focussing on the non-food sectors in India. "From this year basic agriculture commodities such as rice, salt, pepper and honey are among the things we are sourcing heavily. We will be taking care and also responsible for the quality aspects of the products as European Union has pretty high standards when they import food products," said Harsh Bahadur, MD, Metro Cash & Carry India.

The company is also expected to look at fresh vegetable and fruits sourcing after it sorts out the problem with the Karnataka government.

On February, the state government sent a report to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board saying that German retail giant was guilty of violating its licence conditions that expressly prohibited it from 'selling goods to consumers and carrying on retail trade.'