Where can I sell fresh sweet basil and what price do hotels and exporters pay?

Fresh culinary sweet basil (the Italian Genovese type used in pasta and pesto) sells mostly to hotels, restaurants, cloud kitchens, salad and pesto makers, and gourmet retail chains in metros like Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Hyderabad. It is a niche, demand-led crop, not a mandi crop, so you cannot just take it to APMC and expect a buyer. Price for clean, cold-chain handled fresh basil can range very widely, often somewhere between Rs 150 and Rs 400 per kg at the buyer's door, but this depends entirely on quality, packing, leaf size and your distance from the buyer. Please treat that as an indicative range and confirm live rates yourself before planting. The crop is highly perishable, wilts within hours in heat, and needs same-day or next-day delivery in cold boxes, so logistics decide whether you make money. Start by getting 2 to 3 confirmed buyers (a hotel chef, a salad company, a quick-commerce supplier) before you sow even one bed. Send a sample, agree on grade, packing and payment terms in writing. Without a buyer locked in, fresh basil rots fast and you lose the whole lot.