FamilyMart and 7-Eleven are stepping up their competition for Taiwan’s quick-service dining market, worth NT$390 billion (US$13.22 billion) annually.
Last year the two convenience store chains sold more than NT$33 billion in fresh foods, accounting for roughly 8 percent of the dining out market. Fresh foods now make up about 18 percent of 7-Eleven’s sales and 14 percent for FamilyMart. More than 90 percent of outlets provide seating areas for meal consumption.
Uni-President Enterprise Corp., which operates 7-Eleven, is beefing up its links with producers, with 200 contract farmers now cultivating 600 hectares of land. The chain store used 23,000 tons of vegetables in 2012 and expects to increase that figure by 10 percent this year.
The company plans to invest NT$700 million in 2013 to expand production facilities including vegetable processing plants and greenhouses, thus strengthening its control over the entire supply chain to ensure the reliable provision and quality of foodstuffs. At the retail end, 55 percent of the chain’s outlets now exceed 82.64 square meters, with space for eating.
In the last five years, sales of salads and oden—a Japanese-style boiled dish featuring ingredients such as eggs, daikon radish and tofu—have jumped 40-50 percent, while fruit has increased 30-40 percent, 7-Eleven said. The chain is concentrating on light salads and oden with high quality vegetables from its own hothouses such as lettuce, carrots and winter squash.
Its greenhouses, in which it has invested over NT$80 million, are operated on five star hotel standards following EU guidelines, using seeds imported from the Netherlands, 7-Eleven said.
Lin Chun-ru, fresh food manager for Taiwan FamilyMart Co. Ltd., said sales of ready-to-eat food have grown 20 percent annually in recent years. The chain now provides 22,000 seats in its stores islandwide, with plans to expand to 30,000, along with 1,500 large-scale outlets, up from the current 1,000 out of its 2,900 stores. Surveys show that about 40 percent of consumers use convenience stores as restaurants, while 35 percent buy lunch at them on weekdays, she noted.
Polls also indicate that diners are putting increasing emphasis on healthy eating, paying more attention to the amount of vegetables they eat than the food’s oiliness or saltiness, Lin added.
On April 29 FamilyMart announced a deli bar set to open in all its stores in May, featuring 15 dishes such as salads, mapo tofu, shacha beef with water spinach and cabbage with bacon. Individual dishes will cost from NT$30 to NT$35, Lin said, with two dishes plus rice running NT$70 to NT$80. Each food will be heated separately in a microwave oven to preserve freshness and mouth feel. (THN)
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