Eat & Drink
Acquired by Loblaw, Are the Glory Days at T&T Over?
I shop at T&T on Cherry St. at least 3 times a week. Maybe that's inefficient grocery planning but I just can't get enough of the store and love to pop by for some cheap salmon, discounted sushi, fresh bok choy, 2 for 1 specials on enoki mushrooms and a host of other goodies at prices and quality unmatched by conventional grocery stores.
But this morning news came that Loblaw has acquired the 17 store chain for $225 million. A great move for Canada's grocery giant to be sure, but will this signal the beginning of the end for the much loved T&T?
I guess that depends on how you define the end. The good news is that hopefully this deal will lead to at least two things:
- More T&T locations in downtown Toronto
- An improvement in the existing Loblaw stores (ie. more Asian groceries available beyond anglo-packaged goods like Memories of Canton Plum Sauce.)
Will the experience of the T&T stores change from that of a bustling and interesting marketplace to bland PC-branded and No-Name product proliferation?
Let's hope that Galen and Co. do the right thing - let T&T keep doing their thing but provide the resources to make this amazing shopping experience available to more Canadians.
Discussion
32 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
(Sigh)... sold out to The Man.
it's called business, Mike.
the purpose of starting a business is to make money, not have some hippie delusion of making the world a place where the birds chirp, the rainbows show and people skip hand in hand down a flower-lined pathway - that's what psychedelic drug use is for.
congrats to the T&T folks on their success.
they will operate a separate entity to that of Loblaw and only strenghten their relationship with T&T existing supplier base.
Oh, crap. I can't see how this is positive, unless it's just more locations with the EXACT SAME variety of goods. Which Loblaws has never proven they know how to do.
Well put.
And I don't see how Loblaws is any less of "the Man" (oooh scary) than T&T parent corporations Uni-President Enterprises Corporation and Tawa Supermarkets.
I think it's a bit too early to get up in arms about this.
place smells like shit
You make it sound like T&T was a local mom-and-pop operation that got bought out by big industry. T&T was ALREADY a big chain.. have you ever noticed how much of their produce comes from China?
Next up: Loblaws announces Maple Leaf Gardens to become a T&T Superstore!
fark - there go the prices!
Let's hope Loblaws/Westons keep these stores cleaner than the others.
just like you.
Wishful thinking but I hope the prices stay low.
i think this is just a simple business tactic for loblaws to snag a large chunk of the asian consumers who prefers to grocery-shop at T&T. i live uptown, and there are two (plus a new planned one) T&T within 15 min drive of my house. i shop there because they offer a wide range of asian foods catered to asian tastes and they operate clean sanitized facilties (vs. chinatown). no offence to chinatown, but the younger generation loves to eat asian food but many are turned off by the dirty unorganized stores. i'm chinese, and i would rather shop comfortably and pay higher prices than to roam on dundas/spadina and deal with crowds of people and health violations. the older generations are used to the open produce and meats markets, but the younger generation is not.
i hope loblaws will keep T&T as a separate entity. T&T is really the asian version of loblaws to the asian population in toronto anyways.
personally hope they will keep it t&t, clean it up a bit, maybe incorporate new varieties of groceries, but still leave their prices the same. i mean where else can u get sushi+dimsum+fastfood, while shopping for groceries for those prices+all in one :3
I love T&T and hope this doesn't change their prices or their wide variety of products. This reminds me of the recent acquisition of Zappos by Amazon...I guess a recession means its time for the big companies with deep pockets to acquire new assets.
One would assume that Loblaws knows well enough that what makes T&T popular is the authenticity of their products plus the cleanliness and organization of the stores and that a large slice of Nth generation Asians shop there instead of the "international aisle" at Superstore/Loblaws.
Sometimes being bought out by a big corporation isn't so terrible. When I heard Molson was buying out Creemore Springs Brewery I dreaded a decline in quality and a move of production away from the beautiful town of Creemore. The beer is still the same delicious brew I have always enjoyed, and the brewery is now employing even more people in Creemore.
I know T&T isn't quite the same, but just an example of how it can work out.
Loblaws is the following stores:
Atlantic Superstore
Dominion (Newfoundland & Labrador)
Extra Foods
Fortinos
Loblaws Ontario
Loblaws Quebec English
Loblaws Quebec French
Maxi
No Frills
Real Canadian Superstore
Your Independent Grocer
Zehrs
and now T&T.
Say it isn't so!! I hope they don't flood the stores with PC product. I like the ones that they have there just fine. I love T&T just the way it is... although, I would like more fruit than is currently available in the DT toronto one.
Hardly a sell out.
T&T was jointly owned by Uni-President Enterprises Corporation aka T'ung-i Chi-yeh (a big Taiwanese company) and Tawa Supermarkets (99 Ranch Market to those of us who lived in California). T & T, get it?
It's always been a big boy run by big boys. In fact Uni-President Enterprises Corporation is bigger than Weston.
You forgot to mention the affiliates ValuMart, FreshMart, Shop Easy, SuperValu, Lucky Dollar, Axep, Red and White and L'inter Marche.
Let's hope Weston indicating that the chain will be run as a separate division means just what you (and I) would hope, Tim.
No promises, of course, but they have every incentive to keep some of those who have built T&T around long enough to figure out all the things they were doing right.
I only hope that it doesn't change too much. The first sign of soy sauce made by President's Choice, I'm out of there.
I only hope that it doesn't chance too much. The first sign of a soy sauce made by President's Choice, I'm out of there.
there are some serious management politics at T & T.. among people from china, taiwan, hk, etc.. my sister worked there before and hated it... a lot of those chefs were not trained as manager.. they are stubborn and very evil..i hope this buy out will get rid of those crabs
While I'm hoping for the best...
Experience shows that Loblaws took a relatively authentic Italian grocer (Fortino's) and neutered it into a Loblaws under a different name. Maybe this time will be different....
If it is different. Loblaws should take note of the phenomenal prepared/fresh foods section which puts anything in any Loblaws store to shame. May that be an idea that they appropriate for their other store banners.
You aren't familiar with "Memories of (pick your foreign location)" sauces???
Just like telecom, grocery shopping has fallen victim to Canadian cartels. Give your local grocer your business instead when possible!
T&T was in trouble.. over leveraged and while some stores were superstars.. there were also many underperfomers hemmoraging money for T&T. Loblaws overpaid bigtime for T&T.
I am Canadian and my wife is Chinese, when she first introduced me to T & T I was amazed. We live in Barrie and drive an hour every two weeks to go shopping there for authentic Asian food that you just can't find anywhere else (i.e honeydew soy milk drink boxes and honey dew & red bean ice cream, fresh dim sum, a variety of fish like no other supermarket, authentic traditional Asian sauces and spices, etc) while we are excited about the possibilities that maybe now a T & T might open closer to home, we hope that the authenticity of the experience and variety of food doesn't diminish. Maybe a smart idea would be to have a superstore with T&T just the way that it is now on one side, and a Loblaws on the other side. It would be very interesting to watch both the Asian/Canadian shopper have the choice to try new foods and open up their minds to different things. There is a lot of room for the company to expand their market share and customer base if they were to go the other route and incorporate more of the Asian products from T & T suppliers to the rest of their stores.
Thank you much for that informational post.
my first impression is that prices will go up. but i probably wouldn't notice. the thing that would bug me is typical loblaw "out of stock" problems.
I totally agree. I just emailed thru their online form at http://www.tnt-supermarket.com/en/contactus.php the following:
"I heard that Loblaws bought T&T. We hope, HOPE that you will change nothing in your stores. Keep it VERY Chinese, keep the Chinese signs, the Asian workers, the eating area, the products...
DON'T "WHITE IT UP" or "CANADIANISE" it, is what i'm trying to say! We love it just the way it is.
Don't publicize the link between Loblaws Group and T&T. I think it would drive people away.
Can you respond in writing and set our worries aside? Thanks.
--Loyal shoppers at the Toronto T&T since 2005.