Lockdown measures continued in the first quarter of 2021, as the Hong Kong government remained cautious and continued its “zero-case” strategy to control the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the strict measures against the pandemic, the home seclusion trend persisted in 2021, which then continued to drive growth in demand for grocery retailing.
The overall foot traffic in commercial districts remains vulnerable due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as quarantines and lockdown measures are implemented when a new COVID-19 case is identified. In comparison, residential areas remain a stable and strong source of domestic consumption, and more and more grocery retailers are expanding their outlets into these areas.
Amongst traditional grocery retailers, a premiumisation trend was observed in 2021, driven by artisanal bakeries. Bakehouse, a locally founded artisanal bakery first launched in Wan Chai before the pandemic, expanded with a second shop in Soho in 2020, and its third shop was in Tsim Sha Tsui in January 2022.
Seeing no sign of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments in different markets have taken different approaches to strike a balance between public health and economic development. Countries in North America, Latin America and Europe all relaxed travel restrictions in 2021, whereas Asian markets such as Singapore, South Korea and Australia all gave up the “zero-case” approach towards the pandemic and reopened their borders to tourists.
Traditional grocery retailers has lagged behind supermarkets in terms of e-commerce development. One of the key reasons is because most of the traditional grocery retailers in Hong Kong, such as 759 Store and Best Mart 360, are not owned by conglomerates, meaning that it could be risky for such players to develop their own e-commerce infrastructure to expand their online sales capability.
The two years of the COVID-19 pandemic prevented Hong Kong consumers from travelling freely and being able to access overseas grocery products in travel destinations, especially products from Japan and European countries, which were popular travel destinations amongst travellers in Hong Kong before the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Understand the latest market trends and future growth opportunities for the Traditional Grocery Retailers industry in Hong Kong, China with research from Euromonitor International's team of in-country analysts – experts by industry and geographic specialisation.
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Traditional grocery retailing is the aggregation of those channels that are invariably non-chained and are, therefore, owned by families and/or run on an individual basis. For Euromonitor traditional grocery retailing is the aggregation of three channels: Independent Small Grocers, Food/Drink/Tobacco Specialists and Other Grocery Retailers. While there can be modern (i.e. chained) food/drink/tobacco specialists or other grocery retailers, due to the store's presence in the channel, these stores are still considered as traditional for Euromonitor International.
See All of Our DefinitionsThis report originates from Passport, our Traditional Grocery Retailers research and analysis database.
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