NEW DELHI: ITC would sell premium fruits and vegetables and pricey processed foods, competing directly with existing retailers and newage grocers such as Amazon Fresh, hastening its transformation into one of India’s most diversified consumer companies from just the country’s biggest cigarette maker. At the core of ITC’s initiatives to expand beyond snack foods is an elaborate distribution network, underpinning a wider product portfolio at the century-old giant: Seeking to strengthen its Rs 10,000-crore diversified consumer business, ITC plans to build a retailing presence rivalling that of Mother Dairy.ITC group head (agri & IT business) S Sivakumar told ET, in an interview, that the company was looking to build its Master Chef franchisee with processed, frozen foods , while fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables will be sold under a separate brand name.Announcing the company’s foray into frozen sea foods with prawns, Sivakumar said: “By the next quarter, we plan to do fruits and vegetables. Each quarter, we will probably have a rollout, either processed, frozen or dehydrated. The idea is to have a series of products which can be laid on top of existing channels, in the cold chain, in stores, once the capacity is created.”ITC’s consumer business, which includes packaged food, personal care and educational stationery products, crossed Rs 10,000 crore in revenues in 2016-17, registering sales growth of 8% to Rs 10,511.83 crore. The Kolkata-based company said last week, while announcing its fourth quarter earnings, that it is now among the fastest-growing branded packaged foods businesses in the country.“Processed foods will include products that have high variability in prices. The entire aspect of perishability has to be dealt through processing, cold chain and backend development, creating consumer demand and behavioural change of getting consumers buying fresh,” Sivakumar said. While the frozen foods category is minuscule at under Rs 1,000 crore, the fresh produce market is multiple times larger and estimated at Rs 3 lakh crore.ITC will also sell online, starting with BigBasket and other existing online channels by next quarter. The profitability of ITC’s consumer goods businesses declined 72 per cent last year to Rs 28.12 crore. The company attributed the contraction to higher input prices, gestation costs of relatively newer categories such as juices and dairy, and sales disruption because of demonetisation.