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1News
7 days ago
- Business
- 1News
Are Auckland's competitive Asian supermarkets the new model?
Retail grocery store owners in Auckland are feeling the squeeze after stiff competition has tightened margins following the arrival of several large Asian supermarkets over the past 12 months. Described by the Commerce Commission as New Zealand's "largest one-stop Asian supermarket", Foodie opened in Westgate on August 29, 2024. The store spanned 3800 square metres and offered a wide selection of products from China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia, catering to the city's growing Asian communities. Around the same time, Asian supermarket chain Tai Ping opened a new branch in Henderson on August 24. LianHua launched its flagship supermarket store on Auckland's North Shore in November — followed by the opening of Medol in Mt Wellington in June. The recent surge in large Asian supermarket openings in Auckland has expanded options for consumers. At the same time, it has also intensified competition between operators, leaving some business owners feeling mounting pressures to stay profitable. Golden Apple, which opened its first grocery outlet in Henderson in 2015 followed by a second on the North Shore in 2023, is among those feeling the pinch. William Zhong, manager of Golden Apple, said sales at the Henderson location had fallen sharply since the opening of Foodie and Tai Ping's new stores in the same suburb. "My business really struggled from the end of last year through the beginning of this year," he said. Zhong said Golden Apple's core customer base is predominantly Asian, with Chinese shoppers making up the majority. He said the store's North Shore location is performing much better than the Henderson branch, largely due to demographics. "About 60% to 70% of our customers on the North Shore are Chinese," he said. "Whereas in Henderson, it's only around 40%." Zhong said Auckland's Chinese population was growing rapidly but the number of Asian supermarkets was expanding at an even faster pace. He said customers generally preferred to shop close to home, which meant that an oversupply of Asian supermarkets in a single suburb could exceed demand, making it difficult for businesses to remain profitable. "Right now, many of Auckland's best Asian supermarkets are concentrated in West Auckland, particularly in Henderson and Westgate," he said. Four large Asian supermarkets in the area – Foodie, Tai Ping, Golden Apple and SMART – were located a few kilometres from each other, he said. "We all feel the pressure," he said. "The market is not big, but there are more and more Asian supermarkets opening here." Zhong said the economic downturn in many sectors in New Zealand had prompted many Chinese investors to enter the grocery business, believing supermarkets were the best place to make money – especially given their strong performance and status as essential businesses that were allowed to operate during the Covid-19 lockdowns. He believed this trend helped to accelerate the boom in Asian supermarkets across Auckland. Zhong said his focus now was on continuing to provide high-quality products and excellent service to his core customer base, and he was pleased that many customers who had stopped shopping at Golden Apple's Henderson store were gradually returning. He said competition among Asian supermarkets in Auckland was likely to intensify over the next few years, potentially leading to a shake-up in the market. "Some supermarkets will survive," he said. "But those that can't will eventually have to close their doors." Chengde Liu, owner of E-PACS Supermart, admitted to feeling the same pressure. After immigrating from Singapore to New Zealand in the 1980s, Liu opened E-PACS in the Auckland suburb of East Tāmaki in 2000, specialising in offering vegetarian and Malaysian/Singaporean food for the migrant community. Liu said the number of Asian supermarkets and grocery stores in Auckland at the time could be counted on one hand. Tai Ping, Lim Chhour, Soung Yueen and Tofu Shop were among a handful of places where migrants regularly went to buy food that contained the flavour of home and maintain ties to their cultural roots. He said the growing number of Asian migrants had contributed directly to the expansion of the grocery sector in Auckland. Liu's strategy was to stand out by offering a specialised range of products aimed at targeted customers. "Eighty per cent of our products are vegetarian foods," he said. "This is our strength, and the core advantage that allows us to survive." In addition to serving Malaysian and Singaporean foods, Liu said the store had expanded its offerings to include products from Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Taiwan in an effort to attract customers from different backgrounds. Tao Shi, managing director of Foodie, said weekday foot traffic had remained steady at around 2000 to 3000 customers since opening. Foot traffic typically doubled on weekends. Shi said Foodie's gross turnover dipped for about three weeks from late November to early December – a period before Christmas he described as a typical "quiet season" for the grocery sector. "Sales dropped around 10% to 20% during those three weeks," he said. "That was really stressful for us." However, he said sales had bounced back this year and performed well in the last quarter. "The gross turnover in the June quarter increased 15% compared with the March quarter," he said. Shi said Foodie did not aim to compete directly with other Asian supermarkets, adding it offered a unique shopping experience that allowed customers the opportunity to purchase daily essentials at one location instead of visiting multiple stores. He believed all Asian supermarkets share the same goal of expanding and growing their customer base. "I don't think it's competition," he said. "We [Asian supermarkets] can work together to make ourselves more mainstream. "We should advocate for attracting more non-Asian customers to shop [in Asian supermarkets]. We are not here to serve only Asian customers." After a year in operation, Shi said most of Foodie's customers remained Asian, particularly those from Chinese, South Korean, Filipino and Indian communities. During public and school holidays, however, non-Asian shoppers made up nearly half of the store's foot traffic. Shi said market demand was driving the rapid growth of Asian supermarkets in Auckland, adding options for shoppers, including more competitive food prices. "Some products do have competitive prices," he said. "We get fresh produce directly from farms, so we can keep prices a little lower for customers." Shi said Foodie is planning to open at least three to five new branches in Auckland, and potentially outside the city. "We do have the ambition to build Foodie as a national brand," he said. "That's our long-term goal. "But it's still too early to say. After all, we have only one store now, so we will take it one step at a time and serve every customer well." Stats NZ's latest data shows that retail sales value for supermarkets and grocery stores stood at $26.31 billion in 2023, rising to $27.08 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, food prices increased 4.6% in the 12 months to June 30, following a 4.4% rise in the year to May 31. The Commerce Commission's 2024 Annual Grocery Report, released on August 6, said Auckland's major supermarkets held 71% of the market, compared with 88% in the rest of the country. The report said barriers to entry for new competitors remained high, and the major supermarkets continued to wield significant power over smaller suppliers. While consumers in Auckland and other major cities have a range of options, those in smaller towns and rural areas often have little to no choice, with some stores in small towns operating as local monopolies. "Auckland continues to be a hub for the entry and expansion of specialist grocery retailers," a Commerce Commission spokesperson said. "Major supermarkets have a significantly lower market share in Auckland compared with other regions, partly due to the presence of more specialist grocery retailers, like Asian stores. "This is driving higher levels of competition and choice that benefit consumers and is something we would like to see across the country."
NDTV
14-05-2025
- Business
- NDTV
Trump's Qatar Jet Gift Is The Stuff Of Nightmares In Spyworld: Experts
Qatar's offer of a luxury Boeing 747 to President Donald Trump has set off alarm bells within the US intelligence and diplomatic community, where gifts from foreign powers have long been viewed with suspicion. Aside from any legal and ethical qualms about Trump accepting the plane - an 89-seater with a sumptuous French-designed interior - there are technical and security concerns too. Experts say any such gift on a foreign government's behalf presents opportunities for surveilling, tracking or compromising communications of the president and anyone traveling with him. "If we had built the plane, knowing it was going to a foreign government, we would probably have bugged it," said Thad Troy, a former station chief with the Central Intelligence Agency. He recalled serving in Cold War-era Moscow when the American Embassy was being dismantled brick by brick to remove a tangle of surveillance devices embedded into the very concrete of the building. Trump ordered up two new presidential planes from Boeing Co. for $3.9 billion during his first term. Frustrated at delivery delays, he's been on the lookout for alternatives - and apparently had his eye on the Qatari plane even before it was offered to him as a gift this month. Parisian Finish The jumbo in question, built in 2012, was previously on call for Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. The 66-year-old is one of the Qatari royal family's wealthiest figures, having served as prime minister and head of the sovereign wealth fund. It has creamy white and tan furnishings, rugs and artwork by Cabinet Alberto Pinto, a Paris interior design firm. There are custom-made Tai Ping rugs, sycamore and wacapou wood fixtures, and artwork by Alexander Calder. The upper deck has a master bedroom and bath, guest bedroom and private lounge, and downstairs there are lounges, an office and crew areas. The plane would need to be retrofitted to standards that Air Force One currently maintains, according to Troy. That would include a hardening of its surface to withstand explosions and attacks, and technical extras like air-to-air refueling capabilities and classified communications and weapons systems. It would also take months if not years for defense department officials and intelligence officers to take the plane apart and thoroughly sweep it for any tracking devices or detect monitoring of systems that could, among other things, reveal the plane's location. "This is why it takes so long to build Air Force One," said Troy. "It has so many things attached to it to make the president safe." 'Such a Stain' Trump, who's blamed Boeing for falling "way behind," has defended the gift. "Some people say, oh, you shouldn't accept gifts for the country," the president told Fox News while en route to Saudi Arabia where he began a Middle East visit on Tuesday. "My attitude is, why wouldn't I accept a gift? We're giving to everybody else." He also said that Gulf monarchies have bigger and newer planes than the American government, and "I believe that we should have the most impressive plane." But some of the fiercest criticism has come from devoted supporters, who've called it a bribe or a brazen push for influence by the Gulf state. Commentator Ben Shapiro asked how Trump voters would react if a Democrat had done this. "I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we'd all be freaking out on the right," Shapiro said Monday on his podcast. "President Trump promised to drain the swamp. This is not, in fact, draining the swamp." "This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true," far-right activist Laura Loomer posted on X. "And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump." Qatar is a longstanding US ally, and has been a key mediator along with Egypt in efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The country also hosts Hamas's political office. Relationships like that pose a risk "in terms of potential information falling into the hands of people who would use it for their own purposes," according to James Der Derian, who heads the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia. "To be sure, Qatar is not the Soviet Union, but it does have a pretty robust intelligence footprint," he said. "It punches above its weight." Still, while there are dangers in accepting gifts from foreign governments, turning them down isn't risk-free either. Since gift-giving is significant in Arab culture, it could amount to a diplomatic blunder - especially when Qatar is playing such an important role in the search for an end to the Gaza war. That's why "this plane has taken on so much symbolic value right now," Der Derian said. Refuse the gift, and "there could be a lot of upset leaders - not just the US but also Qatar and other Arab countries that think hospitality is a very important part of their culture."
