Super Plus on 'hold'
Published:Wednesday | February 15, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Once a dominant supermarket chain owned by a single family, Super Plus Food Stores has retreated from the big cities and is now concentrated in mid-Jamaica markets.
Chairman Wayne Chen says Super Plus, whose stores are down to eight in what he calls "mature locations", has no immediate plans for investment or growth.
The group has shed 18 supermarkets in the last five years, pulling out of an expansionary phase which saw its network of stores rise to about 34 at peak.
The eight remaining stores are located in Manchester, Clarendon, St Elizabeth, Westmoreland and St Ann. The chain is no longer operational in the cities of Kingston and Montego Bay and has exited St Catherine.
"We are just holding," Chen said, when asked Monday about new directions under consideration for the chain in 2012.
"We have been selling the stores for the last five years and are now down to eight. These are locations in which we have been open since the 1970s; they are mature locations," he said.
The retrenchment gathered steam in 2009 when Super Plus shuttered up to eight of its supermarkets and wholesales outlets, sent 600 workers home and sold its St Andrew headquarters for J$88 million.
At the time, Chen told Wednesday Business that 2008 annual gross turnover up to the end of the financial year was flat at J$11 billion. Super Plus, at its zenith, claimed to be a J$13-billion business in sales, and had about 34 stores in operation.
The last store to be placed on the market publicly was the supermarket located in a Christiana, Manchester shopping plaza.
The family business was started by Vincent and Gloria Chen in Port Antonio in 1964.
By 2003, the group engaged eight of their nine children in the business, at which point it was described as Jamaica's largest retailer, measured by gross revenues, with 24 stores and 1,500 employees.
Super Plus began losing market share as the Progressive consortium was expanding, MegaMart's and PriceSmart's membership-shopping model was gaining traction, and Hi-Lo Food Stores was positioning for growth.
The grocery market is now said to be dominated by Progressive Grocers, a group of individual supermarket owners, who pooled on the buying of stock and otherwise invest in some supermarket assets as a group.