MerryMart Consumer Corp’s wholly-owned subsidiary MerryMart Grocery Centers Inc has signed an agreement with FoodPanda Philippines to operate and pioneer the ‘dark grocery’ store concept in the Philippines with the aim of becoming the first 15-minute grocery delivery service in the country.
PandaMart is FoodPanda’s instant grocery delivery service, which covers convenience grocery goods, personal care essentials, and other fast-moving consumer goods.
‘Dark groceries’ are branches that will generally be invisible and will solely cater to online deliveries within the vicinity. The first two ‘dark grocery’ stores are set to start operations in Makati City and Manila City this October 2020
“This concept is a real game changer in the online grocery space, imagine being able to buy exactly what you need, when you need it, and for it to arrive at your doorstep in a very short span of time. We are glad to join forces with the global delivery platform FoodPanda to power this ‘dark grocery’ store concept as they are the leaders in the online food delivery space,” said MERRYMART Chairman Edgar “Injap” Sia II.
“These ‘dark grocery’ stores will generally be located in select hidden locations and are exclusively intended for online deliveries, we see this initiative to complement the expansion of the brick-and-mortar MERRYMART branches which will serve both delivery and walk-in customers,” added Mr. Sia.
“Our team and myself will continue to be relentless and determined to nurture and exponentially grow both DoubleDragon and MerryMart in this new decade,” he stressed.
“In line with the direction of the MERRYMART team to become more and more efficient, it continues to find ways to exponentially build up its sales volume both from its new store openings and also through innovative partnerships such as this ‘dark grocery’ store concept with the FoodPanda group,” said MERRYMART CFO Hannah Yulo-Luccini.
MERRYMART now has a total of 11 operational branches and targets to end of the year with 25 branches, and aims to open its 100th branch by December 2021.
MERRYMART aims to cover all the grocery retail categories from small, medium, and large grocery retail formats.
MERRYMART will have three (3) grocery retail formats: (1) MERRYMART Grocery, (2) MERRYMART Market and (3) MERRYMART Store.
MERRYMART has set its Vision 2030 with the goal of rolling out a total of 1,200 MERRYMART branches nationwide with an aim of reaching Php 120 Billion in systemwide sales revenue.
FoodPanda Philippines has over 20,000 riders and is present in 71 cities across the country. FoodPanda Philippines is operated by the Berlin-based Delivery Hero SE which operates in 51 countries all over the world. – BusinessNewsAsia.com