MyNews Holdings Berhad, the parent company for local convenience store MyNews, has recently launched its own food processing center (FPC) to produce fresh food to be placed in about 200 outlets located in Klang Valley. Divided into two sections, the FPC is capable of producing ready-to-eat (RTE) meals like onigiri, bento and curry laksa sets, as well as freshly baked goods.
Though in countries like Japan and Taiwan, fresh food has been available at convenience stores for a long time, consumers in Malaysia are only recently getting used to the idea of having fresh meals at convenience stores.
The MyNews FPC was established with a cost of about MYR 100 million (USD 23.92 million), and is a 51:49 joint venture with its Japanese partners Gourmet Kineya and Marubishi Group which specializes in RTE and baked goods respectively. Through the establishment of the FPC MyNews is able to resolve the problems it had with procuring food items from various suppliers with inconsistent quality and varying price points. Currently there are 10 types of fresh food prepared daily at the FPC and transported in chilled trucks to outlets in the Klang Valley by its logistics team on rotation basis depending on demand. The FPC at its full capacity is capable to serve the needs for 600 outlets. MyNews, at the end of April 2019, has 456 stores nationwide.
F&B is the highest revenue contributor to MyNews accounting 42% of total sales. Food, particularly RTE, reportedly has the best gross margin at 45% compared to non-food at 40% and beverages between 30% and 40% of the margin. It has also seen improvement in same store sales growth (SSSG) over the past year, and is aiming to expand its network in Klang Valley and other areas with bigger population such as Penang and Johor Bahru.
(Sources: The Edge Markets; MyNews Holding Bhd)