Bengaluru, July 29 -- Ekart, the logistics arm of the Flipkart Group, was built to do one thing: deliver Flipkart and Myntra parcels across India efficiently and on time. That role has now become far more complex.

In the past two years, Ekart's existing fulfilment centres have taken on a new role of feeding a network of dark stores, or micro-fulfilment centres, set up closer to consumers for Flipkart's quick-commerce app Flipkart Minutes. These dark stores stock fresh categories such as dairy, vegetables and perishable, cold-chain items that Ekart's network had never handled before Minutes came along.

Flipkart's executives told Mint in an exclusive interview that they built this new layer without setting up a parallel logistics network ...