While news of the first T&T Supermarket opening in Ottawa at the end of this month is old, the reality of new competition has yet to set in at Chinatown.
T&T, which was recently sold to Loblaws Cos. Ltd, represents the highest echelon of Asian grocery stores and is the largest of its kind in Canada.
The supermarket attracts many customers with its big box store concept, which contains an in-house bakery, sushi and Chinese barbeque departments.
It truly is one-stop shopping for all your food needs, Asian or otherwise, which is something none of the grocery stores in Chinatown can claim.
Not only do the grocery stores in Chinatown have to contend with more competition to their business, but many are also seeing their long-time employees flee to T&T because the grocery chain can afford to offer better wages and benefits.
To further rub salt into the wounds of Chinatown’s business owners, T&T conveniently held their job fair right in Chinatown’s backyard at the Dalhousie Community Centre at the end of the summer.
At the time, many business owners and Chinatown’s BIA said they were not going to take this lying down and promised changes to keep their loyal customers coming back.
However, with less than a couple of weeks before the Oct. 28 opening date for the new T&T at Hunt Club Road and Riverside Drive, not much has appeared to change in Chinatown.
This is going to lead to a sharp wake up call if this remains the case a month from now.
While the Chinatown BIA can boast its grocery stores as much as they want, the truth is, the stores need to become better in order to compete.
For now, Chinatown’s businesses have the community and downtown advantage. But this will begin to wear thin among its younger patrons, who will be more inclined to drive a little further for their Asian groceries when presented with better selection and price values.
With the new T&T opening up within a short 20-minute drive from Chinatown, it is certain many of its regular patrons will make at least one trip to the new store to see what all the hype is about.
Upon arrival, they will be greeted with a bright, clean grocery store with a greater array of Asian foods than ever before, all fresh and competitively priced.
This is a stark contrast to the popular grocery stores in Chinatown, which are darker and more crowded in the aisles.
There are also some safety hazards that should be dealt with. For example, in Kowloon Market, the largest Asian grocery store in Chinatown, customers browsing the seafood department must tread very carefully to avoid slipping on the very wet tile floor beneath them.
This is just one thing that can be easily improved on and make for a more pleasant shopping experience.
In addition, many of the grocery stores in Chinatown have very limited fruit options in their produce sections.
It is astounding that in the height of apple season, a single apple was a rare commodity in the majority of Chinatown’s grocery stores.
There’s also an unacceptable amount of food – both fresh and processed – left sitting on shelves when it should have been thrown out and replaced with fresher stock long ago. In some instances, some of the stock on the shelves had been sitting for so long, it was beyond recognition.
In one store, there were very visible spots of mold throughout the last of its dragon eye fruit, a popular Asian summer fruit, on the shelves for sale.
In another store, fruit flies swarmed a box of green mangoes making it unappealing for many shoppers to continue to even stay in the store, let alone purchase something after witnessing the conditions in which the produce is sold.
All of these things can be easily improved upon in a short amount of time.
However, if Chinatown continues to drag its feet in basic business principles such as customer safety and fresh stock, they will have no one to blame but themselves when many of their customers decide to become regulars at the new T&T, leaving Chinatown in the dust.