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
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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.
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.
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.
I know T&T isn't quite the same, but just an example of how it can work out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Just like telecom, grocery shopping has fallen victim to Canadian cartels. Give your local grocer your business instead when possible!
"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.
I would NEVER buy anything from this store again now that I know how badly it is managed. Absolutely awful!