7-Eleven unveils 3 'premium' meals, to spend biggest capex so far

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Seven Corp., which holds the master franchise of 7-Eleven Stores in the Philippines, is unveiling three "premium" prepared meals for its customers.

Jose Victor Paterno, Philippine Seven president and chief executive officer, also told philSTAR.com that the company will spend P2 billion in its capital expenditures for the year, its highest so far.

Philippine Seven has tapped Chef Claude Tayag of Bale Dutung in Pampanga for its "Chef Creations" dishes - pulled pork with adobo dip, pakbet with bagnet, and pork sinigang sa kamias - to be sold in its stores in Luzon starting May 7. The dishes, which will be sold with rice, will have a price range of  P75 to P95.

"We would like to provide affordable food in a convenient manner. [The contrbution of prepared meals to our sales] is not as high as we'd like, but we hope that with the trend of premiumization, people spend more money. In Taiwan, they've done this maybe 10 years ago. They also tapped their famous chefs to do their meals. Five years ago, we were not ready. Five years ago if we tried to sell a meal over P60, we would have failed. Now, we are selling meals at P70 to P75 and we're quite successful," said Paterno.

Paterno added that their target market for the new set of prepared meals is the middle class.

"By using our scale, we can bring affordable and very good food to the middle class," he said.

Tayag said he  was excited to collaborate with Philippine Seven for the meals when it was mentioned to him that the dishes would have to be "nutritious and at the same time affordable."

"I've been to their (Philippine Seven) commissary many times and it is state of the art. I will vouch 100 percent that it's (meal) as fresh as you can get.  (Meal is) freshly cooked and with the high standard of ingredients, cooked at the right temperature and chilled at the right temperature ," Tayag said.

Philippine Seven executives also bared that each store will only order "what's good for the day based on sales forecast."

Paterno meanwhile said the bigger portion of the company's capex for the year will be spent for the rolling out of 300 new stores. At end 2013, Philippine Seven had 1,000 stores.

"The capex will come from our cashflow. Half of the new stores will be company-owned and half will be franchises," he said.

First quarter performance for the year is "good" but not better than the first quarter sales in 2013.

Philippine Seven said its net income in 2013 rose 46.7 percent to P683 million as sales grew on "improving economic conditions and the implementation of the new excise tax law on tobacco and liquor."