MORE STORES, RENOVATION TO STAY IN FOCUS

       A listair Taylor, the next president of Central Food Retail (CFR), said yesterday that he would keep the retail food business of Central Group growing through store expansion and renovation with Bt1 billion budgeted for this year and Bt600 million next year.
       "It's very challenging to me to achieve our sales target [of 9 per cent from an estimated Bt22 billion this year to Bt24 billion next year]," he said.
       Taylor, 46, will succeed Ian Pye, who is retiring on September 1 due to health problems. Taylor joined CFR in December 2004 and is now senior vice president for operations and business support.
       Under CFR's business vision to move forward amid the intense competition, Pye planned to invest Bt1 billion in opening stores, renovating stores and improving IT tosupport merchandising and the SPOT reward card as one of the company's customer relations management programmes.
       The expansion drive is still concentrated on four concepts to serve various customers' needs-Tops Market, Tops Super, Tops Daily and Central Food Hall.
       "Our major move in the last quarter of this year is to renovate existing stores and expand new stores. We expect to have a total of 128 stores this year,[up from 106 stores last year]," he said.
       CFR's market share has kept growing as it has been investing in expansion since 2004. The company is now considered the market leader in supermarkets and hypermarkets with a share of 806 per cent.
       Its market share is expected to climb further to 10 cent this year.
       The overall food retail market is worth Bt500 billion, of which 42 per cent is the modern trade and 58 per cent is traditional trade.
       Major players include Tesco with 55 stores and Villa Market with 15.
       CRF logged Bt20.2 billion in sales last year and expects to hit Bt 22 billion this year and Bt24 billion next year.
       For the first seven months, sales grew by 3 per cent form the same period last year and are expected to grow by 5-7 per cent in the rest of this year. This will be short of its sales target set last year to grow by 8-9 per cent because customers traded down on produce, meaning higher sales volume but lower value.
       But net profit fell in the first seven months as the company invested heaily in the CRM programme to retain its loyal customer base.
       "We're growing faster than the industry. However, cash flow is more important than market share for the retail industry," Pye said. The company has cleared all its debts to zero since last September.
       The company will focus on developing its house-brand products, from 450 items currently to 750 next year. It will also spend Bt400 million to build three Tops Markets, two Tops Supers and 40 Tops Daily's as well as Bt200 million to refresh its 17 existing stores.
       Taylor said he would continue with the company's vision but make wsome adjustments i strategy.
       Most of the new locations willuse the Tops Daily format, with 18 branches to be added in the rest of this year and 40 more next year.
       This is because Tops Daily is easier to roll out than the other two larger concepts-Tops Super and Tops Market-as it requires only 300 square metres of retail space.