The Haryana-based Guardian Lifecare Private Limited, the North India's largest pharmacy health and beauty chain stores, is planning to put a strong foothold in the nutraceuticals market in India by increasing its number of stores to 400 by 2010.

The company, which currently has 141 stores in north, east and western states of India, is planning to open another 84 stores in the region by March 2009 to total 225 stores under one umbrella, according to Ashutosh Garg, chairman and managing director, Guardian Lifecare. The company is chalking out the expansion with an investment of Rs100 crore from private equity funds to achieve the goal.

The expansion plans will also help the company to cash on the growing nutraceuticals market, informed Garg. "As the Indian market grows, the Indian consumer will increasingly look towards to organized retailers to meet their nutraceutical requirements and this would happen because of the knowledge that is available through qualified nutritionists in such stores. The nutraceuticals market would grow at over 35 per cent per annum. Guardian is expanding its retail presence across the country to tap the potential of this market through Guardian and GNC stores," he averred.

The company is the exclusive master franchisee with GNC Inc, the world's largest dietary supplements company under Guardian Nutrition and Health Supplements Pvt. Ltd, in India. The company so far has set up GNC stores for nutraceuticals and health products within 22 Guardian stores along with three stand alone stores. The products of GNC is also distributed through another 50 Guardian Pharmacy stores.

"The first exclusive GNC store was opened at Select City Walk, Saket, New Delhi and encouraged by the response, recently we have opened three more exclusive GNC stores, two in Mumbai-Bandra, Powai) and one in Ludhiana," maintained Garg. The company is currently looking forward for setting up more stores in the western region of the country.

The company has identified that the current trends in retail pharma sector demands focus on establishing the stores as a one stop shop for the health conscious customers. With the Indian customer becoming discerning retail pharma stores have to become more service conscious. Besides, customers have begun to look at these stores as one stop solution to their wellness needs and are expecting more from these stores. In addition, growth is now happening in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities as well, commented Garg on the latest organised pharma retail trends.

The company has built 110 pharmacy, wellness, health and beauty retail outlets in 15 cities at present and is adding 2 new stores each week. The company currently operates in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida, Meerut, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Jaipur, Varanasi, Sonepat, Hissar, Rewari and Ludhiana.