SOCIAL commerce startup SariSuki has introduced a new rapid grocery delivery service called Supah that delivers groceries across select parts of Metro Manila.
During a media round table in Pasig City on Wednesday, SariSuki Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Brian P. Cu said that Supah offers a delivery service for grocery items such as snacks, condiments, beverages, fresh produce, and dry and frozen goods within 15 minutes.
Supah’s delivery services are currently available in Makati City, Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, Pasig City, Mandaluyong City, San Juan City, Binondo district in City of Manila, and both New Manila and Timog areas of Quezon City.
“Our business puts tremendous value on our customers’ time and needs. We see doing the grocery as effortless, time-saving and economical, while still making it possible to attend to other things. Thanks to our efficient ecosystem of suppliers, vendors and riders, we are able to fulfill this commitment without a delivery fee,” Mr. Cu said.
Supah currently has eight “dark stores” where the goods are stored, and over 100 riders that cater close to 5 million people, and categorizes under quick commerce.
Mr. Cu, a former president of Grab Philippines, said that Supah has been “quietly tested” since March over certain areas and has garnered a positive response, adding that the company raised around $11 million last year to fund the new venture.
“When we first started it, no one thinks they need 15 groceries until they get groceries in 15 minutes, sometimes even a little bit less. The goal of Supah is [to] help reduce the time used up by today’s busy consumers in going to the supermarket, and in spending time away from the other activities that they can use with the time that they have,” Mr. Cu said.
Lance Y. Gokongwei, JG Summit Holdings, Inc. president and chief executive, said that the company can help Supah by making products from its Universal Robina Corp. (URC) more accessible.
JG Summit’s corporate venture capital, JG Digital Equity Ventures (JGDEV), is an investor in SariSuki. Mr. Gokongwei is also a board director of SariSuki.
“I think my role really is to advise and provide some experience that I can share. As far as the JG Summit resource, of course, our ecosystem, we want to help as much as possible in terms of making products, for instance, from URC as accessible as possible to the company,” Mr. Gokongwei said.
“Supah offers great potential as it tries to address the consumers’ evolving needs in grocery shopping by finding the optimal balance among several critical factors like speed, assortment, value, and convenience. This innovative technology will help shape the future of grocery shopping in the country,” he added.
Moving forward, Mr. Cu said that the company seeks to expand, saying that 40 dark stores is enough to cover the entirety of Metro Manila.
“We’re looking at expansion. But we want to prove (there’s) enough demand in the existing stores that we have now before we start investing in expansion,” Mr. Cu said.
“To cover the entire Metro Manila in 15 minutes, we need to have 40 dark stores. But we’re not saying that we’re going to go to 40 next year,” he added. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
