A marketplace of fresh, innovative ideas

It’s a hypermarket. It’s a wine store. It’s a health/beauty store. It’s a delicatessen. Oui, it’s a French bakery. It’s a grab-and-go dining place. Imagine all this (and so much more) in one humongous state-of-the-art destination called Marketplace by Rustan’s at Rockwell, Power Plant Mall.

So, to Marketplace we go! First on our itinerary is the fresh produce section, where my mouth waters at the sight of rows and rows of grapes, apples, pineapples, oranges, watermelons, Davao’s prized durian, and big, succulent strawberries flown in from New Zealand. We get a free taste of the strawberry — how berry nice!

Great meating place

There’s the delicatessen, an extended ready-to-eat section with a pasta bar, baked potato bar, and a carving station (but more on this a wee bit later, so hold your appetite). Here, too, cheese lovers can choose their cheese, of which there’s a great variety from all over the world — soft cheese, hard cheese, mild cheese, sharp cheese from Prague, Spain, and the European countries.  It’s also a great meating place for cold cuts and sausages. Taking center stage, along with a variety of hams, is the jamon iberico de bellota, the finest, melt-in-your-mouth ham in the world. Si!

There’s the brand shop, a store-within-a-store concept, that houses imported chocolates and canned goods from Ghirardelli, Waitrose, Casino, Stonewall Kitchen, and Tea Forte, among other well-known and well-loved global brands.

It’s breadtime!

Oui, oui, Marketplace by Rustan’s is happy to bring in Eric Kayser Artisan Boulanger Paris for those natural leaven breads with a subtle hint of milk and hazelnuts, award-winning baguettes and croissants, and cakes. The best-kept secret of Eric Kayser’s breads? It’s the long fermentation time to preserve the bread’s flavor and give it a beautiful light airy crumb. Eric Kayser is flying in its French chef from Paris to give you your freshly baked croissants and more.

There’s the fish/seafood section, where we caught sight of a variety of big, fat fresh fish — the ones that didn’t get away. For just P818 per kilo, you can have a salmon steak or a blue marlin steak for P548 per kilo. Or try the oysters (like some of us did) flown in fresh from France.

Marco Qua, owner of Cold Storage Seafood, brings to Marketplace by Rustan’s the best premium frozen seafood products — from Chilean sea bass to black cod gindara, Norwegian salmon, scallop, and halibut. Ready-to-eat fresh sushi and sashimi offered daily in a supermarket? Hai! Qua’s company was the first to offer the freshest supermarket sushi and sashimi, now available at Marketplace by Rustan’s, the same ones you’ll enjoy in a restaurant.

More fresh news

Rocel Cahilig, Rustan’s Supermarket fresh division director, shares more fresh tidings. He points us to the staggering assortment of fresh meats, the fresh cut-ups (watch as they slice your meat with the cutting machine), as well as the ready-to-cook marinated chicken.

Of course, you’ll go nuts over the assorted nuts and dried fruits in the different dispensers lined against the wall. Now, that’s really nutty and nice!

A visit to the wine & spirits shop is enough to lift the spirits. Wine lovers will be delighted to know that this section carries a wide selection of old world and new world wines.

You can pair your wine with a bar of Brix (which is shaped like a brick), the first chocolate ever created specifically for wine.  So, forget the cheese, smile, and indulge yourself without guilt with a bar or two or more of Brix.

You’re bound to have a beautiful experience at the health/beauty shop, what with the latest in hair and body care products and cosmetics. It’s got organic baby care and food products, too.

Having feasted our eyes on the place’s awesome toothsome offerings, our grumbling stomachs are riveted to the cooked food section, where you can treat yourself to something as light as a salad or something as robust as roast beef. I must confess I always look forward to eating after (or sometimes before) doing my groceries at Rustan’s, what with the delicious meals exquisitely conceptualized by author, chef, teacher Beth Romualdez. But though Beth helped conceptualize the food offerings at Marketplace by Rustan’s, she has opted to spend less time in the kitchen  and more time with her family.

From hypermarket to marketplace

“Fifteen years ago, we introduced an innovation in Philippine retailing by opening the very first hypermarket in the country called Shopwise — for the first time, you could buy your vegetables and foodstuff fresh,” fondly recalls Frances Yu, VP for Rustan’s Supermarket. “And we created a new standard on how to sell freshness. Since then, a lot of hypermarkets have opened. And from one store, we have grown to 38 stores  and from one hypermarket, we’re now operating hypermarkets, upscale supermarkets, and the neighborhood grocery stores under the Wellcome banner. I’m so happy that today, in 2013, we have created another innovation revolution in retailing by introducing Marketplace by Rustan’s. It’s like a new standard in upscale supermarket shopping in terms of quality products and international ranges across categories. And this is really something that excites us — because not since Shopwise have we been able to introduce this kind of innovation on the Philippine market. Shopwise was really geared for the middle classes — we wanted to give them a very high quality shopping experience. On the other hand, Marketplace by Rustan’s is for the more discriminating shoppers who travel abroad and want to find their favorite products abroad here.”

Those who travel abroad are probably familiar with the name Marketplace by Jason’s in Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Marketplace is an upscale supermarket shopping concept well-known throughout Asia. But why is it called Marketplace by Rustan’s?

Rustan’s Supercenters, Inc. (RSCI) has partnered with Hong Kong-based Dairy Farm Group, a leading Pan-Asian retailer that operates supermarkets, hypermarkets, convenience stores, health and beauty stores, and home furnishings stores under well-known brands.

Dream team of mavericks

RSCI president Donnie Tantoco tells us more: “Marketplace is a name that Dairy Farm already uses, it has brand equity in the region. But for me, it’s really aligned with the vision I had when I took over Rustan’s Supermarket in 2006. Lolo (Ambassador Bienvenido Tantoco Sr.) built Rustan’s Supermarket in 1970 and he said, ‘Donnie, take care of Rustan’s.’ He didn’t give me a choice, by the way. It’s a great, powerful brand. It stands for many wonderful things — quality, excellence, international products, exceptional service. He said, ‘Donnie, protect it, preserve it, evolve it.’ If you look at our team, we’re mavericks, we’re risk takers — we don’t just preserve, protect, evolve. We’ve got to do something daring, we’ve got to bring it to the next level. And we all love the marketplace, we all love food! We all go to the marketplaces of France, Italy, UK even, and Barcelona. We put all these experiences of going to those marketplaces together and bring all that to Filipino families and make them available every day. But you won’t see all that all at once. This is a journey and it begins with that first step.  But we don’t have the skill. We’re learning the details of slicing ham properly, how to sell Wagyu — the first time we sold Wagyu, it flopped because we lacked the knowledge. So, now, we’re getting all those crafts and we’re relatively comfortable with the knowledge we have right now, Dairy Farm injected it.”

It’s a marriage made in retail heaven — the best practices of Rustan’s together with the international standards and know-how of the Dairy Farm Group.

“We operate nearly 5,700 stores across 12 different markets in Asia, across different formats,” says Dairy Farm International CEO Graham Allan. “We’re fortunate enough to have met the Tantoco family whom we have admired from afar for a long time not only because they’re outstanding people with great values but also because frankly, they have built an extraordinary business in the Philippines. And with a very clear market lead in the upscale segment, it seemed like a natural fit. The Tantocos have outstanding personal values as well as great business values. But also, they’re great believers in quality — for us, that’s a very important component in the way we compete in our different markets, to bring the benefits of retail to the Asian markets. Just looking around, I’m impressed by the quality of the execution and, in particular, I’m inviting you to note the fresh offer which, at the end of the day, is the principal point of distinction in the upscale supermarkets.”

Donnie, a third-generation scion and a former TOYM (Ten Outstanding Young Men) awardee, has truly mastered the ABCs of his craft. He notes, “For today’s consumers, it’s never ‘one size fits all’ anymore. Consumers are diversifying, there are different segments, and we’ve got to create a format that meets the unique needs of each of the segments. We want to be the best at that, so the attitude we have is to be consumer-driven, be neighborhood-driven. We want to know what the differences are at the local level and make sure the way we organize our store, our assortment, caters exactly to what they want.”

What’s baking at marketplace?

What I want right now is to eat a hot-off-the-oven baked potato being offered at the cooked food section. Of course, some people are more familiar with the good old spud.

“Even in our roasts, we’re starting with something so familiar — spuds,” says Donnie with gusto. “We’re elevating the ordinary potato. Ordinarily, potato would be boring. How do we make it inspiring? We don’t just want to make it delicious, we want to make it inspiring. You can eat potatoes for one week here and not get bored, what with the diversity of potato toppings you can have. We’re going to have roasts here every weekend — roast beef, prime rib, carvings, sidings. It’s a little bit of our Filipino turo-turo habit.”

To which Frances Yu adds, “Every weekend, when you come here, there’ll be something that’s being carved — it could be Angus roast beef, turkey, it depends on the season.”

Frances shares, “This is the first time we’re bringing restaurant-quality meals to the supermarket. So, aside from our wide range of salads, sandwiches, and savory tarts, we have cooked food — roasts, sidings, a carving station, and the very first potato bar where you can choose your toppings and your sauce, and it’s cooked in front of you.”

Marketplace by Rustan’s promises to be the toast of the town, too. “You can drink your wine here or bring it home,” says Donnie. “It’s a starting point for the big cheese eaters who want to have wine with their cheese. Did you know that Dairy Farm in Singapore owns 60 percent market share of wines, so we’re going to tap into that. So you can treat yourself to the best quality wines from all over the world at the lowest prices. Now, it’s about the individual — treat myself, ‘me’ time.”

Did we hear “lowest prices”?

“Because we’re partners with the Dairy Farm Group, we share sources and supplies,” explains Frances. “We have the volume through Dairy Farm so products are brought in at very good prices. In fact, if you look at the prices of Waitrose (an upmarket chain of British supermarkets) products, the prices are very competitive.”

Marketplace by Rustan’s may be a big store, but you’ll feel like you’re shopping in a specialty store. “We have stores within a store,” Frances describes. “Here, you’ll find specialty foods — cold cuts, hot food, etc. and you can eat it all here as we have a sizable eating area.”

Shopping at Marketplace by Rustan’s is made even more delightful with its shopper-friendly, modern aesthetic conceptualized and executed by international retail artist Shozo Nitta. It’s also Rustan’s first ever green store making use of LED lights which consume less electricity and causes less waste.

I dare say that Marketplace by Rustan’s could be everybody’s favorite place — and not just where one can get good buys and good food but also where families and friends can create good memories to last a lifetime.