Central Food Retail, operator of Tops Supermarket, plans to triple the market share of its own brands in the next three years, senior vice president Chiranun Poopat said.
A couple of months ago, the company launched its "My Choice" subbrand, which covers products from small and mediumsize (SME) vendors as well as Otop manufacturers. The company expects a 40 per ent surge in sales this year where this brand is concerned.
Chiranun, who is in charge of buying, marketing and retail merchandising for the supermarket chain, said the company wants to increase the proportion of its own products sold from the current 3 per cent to about 10 per cent in the next three years.
She said Central Food's brands would be differentiated from other mass brands, making Tops' a "destination supermarket".
"There are currently about 29 SME and Otop suppliers covering about 300 different SKUs [stock keeping units]. We plan to double the number of the SME suppliers to between 70 and 100 and cover about 600 SKUs of SME and Otop products in the next three years," Chiranun explained.
Central Food Retail, in cooperation with the Department of Industrial Promotion and MZD, yesterday launched the "Tops of the TopOtop" campaign to help strengthen the SME and Otop sector as well as give them opportunities to enter the world market. The campaign involves some 80 SME vendors covering more than 500 products. MZD has been appointed as adviser for the project.
"Under the campaign, all SME and Otop producers will cooperate in terms of maintaining product quality, packaging materials used, design and distribution," Chiranun said.
She added that about 300 items from 29 small and medium producers selected by Tops' buyer unit and MZD, would be made available at the Tops supermarkets in Chaeng Wattana, Lat Phrao and Rama II. The campaign is being held from September 1 to October 31, and will be used to provide customer feedback so the products can be improved further.
Chiranun said Central Food Retail had three brands of its own, namely My Choice, Cooking for Fun and Tops. The My Choice brand covers readytoeat products; Cooking for Fun covers speciality products such as olive oil, organic rice and pasta; while the Tops brand covers more premium consumer products.
Central Food Retail currently operates 124 outlets, four of which are Central Food Halls located at Central Chidlom, Central World (to be reopened on September 28), Central Festival Phuket and Pattaya. The company also operates three wine outlets, 36 Tops Markets, 56 Tops Supermarkets and 25 Tops Daily outlets.
"We will focus on expanding our Tops Daily outlets, which have been positioned as mini supermarkets and will be opened in smaller catchment area, such as community and neighbourhood malls. Tops Daily will less than 300 square metres and will be different from Tops Market, which should occupy a retail space of between 1,000 and 2,000 square metres depending on the size of the mall," Chiranun said.