IE Singapore, SMF tie-up to launch Singapore food into Southeast Asian supermarkets

High entry costs will no longer bother local manufacturers.

Supermarket chains in Southeast Asia are about to get stocked with Singapore food products, thanks to a partnership between International Enterprise (IE) Singapore and Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF).

According to IE Singapore’s media release, high entry costs and difficulty in products registration local food manufacturers have kept Singapore food manufacturers from getting their products in supermarkets in Asia.

Under the Working In Partnership (WIP), IE and SMF’s tie-up enjoys the support of IE’s Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD) programme.

IE Singapore and SMF will identify supermarkets to partner with, negotiate for optimal product listing fees followed by promotional activities like in-store sampling. SMF will also appoint an anchor partner to consolidate food products from different firms, and will ship them directly to the supermarkets in a shared container.

“With this sharing of resources and elimination of the importer/distributor, this helps our companies overcome high distribution costs, resulting in cost savings that allows the companies to price the products at more competitive selling prices,” stated IE Singapore.

The WIP programme has grown to 800 stock keeping units (SKUs) from 80 companies in 2016, from 50 SKUs across 10 firms in 2011.

Further, there are now two participating supermarkets in Southeast Asia—Central Food Group in Thailand and City Mart in Myanmar, the biggest supermarket chains in the respective countries. In the pipeline is a partnership in Rustans in Philippines, with plans to have the fourth partner on board by end-2016.