B.C. expansion returns Asian grocery store chain to Vancouver roots
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 01:30:48 +0000
Asian grocery chain Sungiven Foods is returning to its roots in Vancouver.
The chain, which has expanded to over 100 stores in China since its inception eight years ago, was founded by Kathy Su and Richard Lian, both of whom have lived in Vancouver since 2004 and say their time on the West Coast was the inspiration for the stores.
“They were very inspired by the food quality, the food safety standards,” said company spokesperson Terence Fong. “The consumer trusts where the food comes from.”
Su and Lian were also both inspired by Vancouver’s commitment to locally sourced food. Thus, even the idea for Sungiven is locally sourced.
“We have spent a lot of time in Vancouver and have always been inspired by the city’s approach to food,” said co-founder Kathy Su in a news release. “High quality, healthy, all-natural ingredients are prized on the West Coast and we decided to incorporate that philosophy into our stores.
“Now we are looking forward to sharing our community-driven Asian grocery store concept with the people and places that helped to inspire it.”
Sungiven has announced the launch of its first Metro Vancouver store, near City Hall at the Vancouver City Square shopping centre at 555 West 12th Ave. — a space vacated by Safeway when its parent company, Sobey’s, made the decision last year to close several stores across the region.
The store, far and away the largest of Sungiven’s planned spaces to date at 13,000 sq. ft, is set to open next month.
Fong said Sungiven was lucky to find a vacancy in the mall, as the location was perfect to serve a sizable Asian customer base that often has to travel a great distance to find what they’re looking for.
“They want to buy Asian products but they cannot have it on the west side, so they’re travelling to Richmond, to the east of Vancouver, so they hope that this is a store that can serve the Asian community in those areas,” said Fong.
That’s a customer base that typically looks to big box stores like T & T Supermarket, Sungiven’s closest competition, but Fong’s Sungiven offers a different shopping experience by carrying a smaller inventory of products that consumers can trust are consistently high-quality.
While some of Sungiven’s products will come from China, Fong said many of Sungiven’s perishable items will be sourced from small and local B.C. farms.
Sungiven Foods will soon be opening two more stores, at 3301 West Broadway in Vancouver and 4106 East Hastings St. in Burnaby, and there are plans to open 10 to 15 total locations across the Lower Mainland over the next five years.
“We know it is not just what you buy that matters, but who you buy it from,” said Su. “Our goal is to become the friendly family-orientated grocery store for people across the Lower Mainland. That is why instead of opening a big box store, we are building locations across Metro Vancouver so that we can be a part of the communities that we are serving.”
with files from The Canadian Press
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