Billing for your fruit and vegetable shop in Bihar
The Chhath lists, the litchi rate of the day and the caterer's big order, written down once.
Chhath week, litchi trucks and a caterer who pays after the feast
Everyone wants the same fruit for the same two mornings
For Chhath, every family needs bananas, oranges, apples, sugarcane and coconuts, and each wants them fresh, early and in a basket of its own. The lists are shouted across the counter, rates go up with each hour, and the fruit finishes by the second morning. You cannot say which family asked first, and the family that waited all night for its bananas is the one that remembers.
Litchi comes in trucks and goes bad in two days
The litchi season is short, and each truck that arrives has its own rate. A crate bought in the morning at one price may be matched by a cheaper crate by the afternoon. You sell it loose by the kilo, in boxes, and some of it by the dozen to a neighbour, and by evening you cannot say what a single crate really made.
A feast needs fifty kilos, and the cook pays after the function
The halwai who cooks for a wedding or a shraddha orders potatoes, brinjal, tomatoes and fruit in bulk for a fixed morning. You hold back the stock, send it on the day, and wait for the money until the family has settled with him. The order is a day and a weight on a torn scrap of paper, and the scrap is the only proof you sent it.
Which Bihar district grows what you sell
The fruit and vegetables on a Bihar counter come from districts with their own crops, and the shop owner hears about the harvest from every truck driver.
- Muzaffarpur farmers grow the GI-certified Shahi Litchi, and the first air export of it to the UK, in May 2021, was sourced from their orchards.
- Samastipur is a major potato producer, with over 20 cold storages for potatoes.
- Darbhanga is famous for its trade in fish, mango and makhana.
- In East Champaran, agriculture is the main income, with rice and sugar cane as major crops.
- Patna has long been a farm hub and a trading centre, and grain, sugarcane and sesame are among its most active exports.
From the evening list to the crate that leaves at dawn
Bananas cut from the bunch the morning they are wanted
A Chhath family wants its bananas cut from the bunch on the morning of the puja, with the sugarcane and the coconuts beside them. Cut the bananas at the last hour, not at five in the morning to sit in the sun until nine. The bunch stays whole until the family comes for its fruit.
Which truck's litchi paid
Each truck of litchi comes at its own price and goes at its own pace. At night read the kilos that went from the morning's truck and from the afternoon's, and see which truck paid. The truck that sold out by noon is the one to ask the trader for first next time.
The wedding and shraddha sacks, written on the morning they go
A shraddha or a wedding takes potatoes, brinjal and tomatoes by weight on a fixed morning. Give the halwai a page and write the weights and the day against it. A scrap of paper was the only proof; now the page is, and a dispute is settled by the day written there.
What a Bihar fruit counter uses most
Online orders
The Chhath evening lists: one basket per family, bananas, oranges and sugarcane written in, and ready in the order they were sent.
Bills on your phone
The litchi rate changed truck by truck, with the kilo, the box and the dozen each billed at its own price.
Sell to other businesses
The halwai who cooks for a wedding applies once to buy on credit. After that, his orders of potatoes and brinjal for each feast go on his own page, apart from the morning's walk-in sales.
Credit book (khata)
A page for each caterer and each family that pays later, every bill dated and weighed, so the feast order is never only on a scrap.
Orders to suppliers
Before Chhath, one order to the wholesaler for the sugarcane and the oranges, in their own counts and kilos, kept apart from the banana and apple order.
Daily reports
Kilos of each fruit on each day of the litchi weeks, so the climb in the first week and the drop in the last can be read next May.
Questions from fruit and vegetable shops in Bihar
Lists for bananas have come, and walk-in families still buy from my heap. How do I keep the promised bananas?
Add up the bananas the day's lists promise on your phone. Keep that many aside, and let the shelf count show what is left for walk-ins.
A caterer takes fifty kilos of potatoes for a wedding. Is it the same rate as a kilo?
A big lot can have its own rate. Set the potato rate for the caterer's bill on its own, lower than the kilo rate, and the other bills keep the board rate.
I sell a whole crate of litchi to one buyer in the afternoon and the rest by the bunch. Can one crate be both?
Keep litchi as one item with the crate's kilos as its stock. A bill for the whole crate takes its kilos off at once, and a bill for a few bunches takes only theirs, so the evening count shows what is left of the crate.
Litchi is tired by the second day. What do I do with what the evening truck left?
Look at the kilos left in the morning and change the rate on the bill for the buyers who take the rest. Offer the biggest lot to the caterer before the sweetness goes. By the third day litchi is a loss.
The Sunday chokha vegetables run out by noon. How do I know on Saturday evening what to bring?
Open the stock count on Saturday evening. It shows the kilos of brinjal, pointed gourd and potato still with you, so you decide what to bring from the wholesaler before the Sunday buyers arrive.
Litchi, the fruit Bihar is known for
Muzaffarpur, Vaishali and West Champaran are Bihar's main litchi hubs, and Muzaffarpur's orchards are known for the GI-tagged Shahi litchi. A fruit shop in these districts sees the crop come in by the truck in its short season.
In 2026, unusual weather left many Bihar litchi orchards with only 30% to 40% of the usual crop, the National Research Centre on Litchi said. In such a year the rate moves more than the shop owner expects, and a shop that wrote down the earlier year can see the difference at once.