99 Ranch Market is an Asian American supermarket chain owned by Tawa Supermarket Inc., which is based in Buena Park, California. 99 Ranch has over 43 stores, primarily in California, with other stores in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, and Texas. The company also started offering shopping via its website in 2014.
99 Ranch Market is one of the largest Chinese American supermarket chains in the United States. It is also considered a Taiwanese-American market because of the considerable amount of products imported from Taiwan and because the store was founded by Taiwanese-born American Roger H. Chen.
History
Roger Chen, a Taiwanese-born American, opened the chain's first location in 1984 in Little Saigon, a Vietnamese American community located in Westminster, California. (now closed). In 1987, a second market was opened in Montebello (also now closed). It was originally called 99 Price Market but was eventually renamed 99 Ranch Market to give the supermarket a somewhat trendier name.
The supermarket's name has led to some confusion throughout time. Most commonly, there is debate over the chain's name, with many referring to the supermarket as "Ranch 99." This may stem from the fact that many store locations' front signage is designed with the "99" logo between the words "Ranch" and "Market." The company, however, is and has always been officially branded as "99 Ranch." In addition, some of the stores (especially those in Southern California) are located in the same market area as the similarly named 99 Cents Only Stores, but nevertheless there is no relation between the two chains (99 Ranch Market specializes in Asian-American supermarket products while 99 Cents Only is a variety store that sells products at a price of 99 cents). Likewise, in Phoenix, Arizona, there is a similarly named ethnic supermarket called "Pro's Ranch Market", but instead of selling Asian products it sells completely different Mexican products.
Prior to 1998, all stores that were opened outside of California were done through franchisees. Except for a single store in Nevada, all of these franchises had either failed (Hawaii and Georgia), become independent (Indonesia), or both (Arizona).
In their first expansion outside of California, company owned stores were opened in the Seattle area at the Great Wall Shopping Center in 1998 and a second store at the Edmonds Shopping Center in 2003.
Over the years, 99 Ranch Market has developed into the largest Asian supermarket chain, with its own production facilities, including farms and processing factories. The chain is currently headquartered in Buena Park, California.
In addition to its American stores, it maintains its own production facilities in China and these company-owned plants have implemented quality control measures to ensure that products from China are compliant with Food and Drug Administration standards and regulations.
A franchise store was established in Atlanta at the Asian Square in 1993. This store was unable to compete with more recently opened East Coast based chains like Super H Mart and closed in 2010.
Beginning in 1993, 99 Ranch Market invested in a Chinese-Canadian supermarket chain called T & T Supermarket (大統è¯) along with Uni-President Enterprises Corporation of Taiwan and a group of Canadian investors headed by President and CEO Cindy Lee. T&T initially started stores in the Vancouver area, and then expanded throughout Canada and into Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto. 99 Ranch Market sold the T&T Supermarket chain to Loblaw Companies in 2009 for $225 million.
In 1995, the first 99 Ranch Market location in the state of Nevada was opened by a franchise that was owned by Chen's nephew Jason Chen as the anchor for the new Chinatown Plaza development in Las Vegas. A second Las Vegas area location was opened two decades later in October 2015.
In Phoenix, a franchise store was established by E&E Supermarkets in 1997 at the Chinese Cultural Center. Unfortunately, this venture did not last long and E&E Supermarkets filed for bankruptcy in 1999 and the store was eventually closed.
Another franchise store in Honolulu was established by Sunrise USA, Inc. in 1998 at the Moanalua Ethnic Village. This store was closed in 2007.
In 1997, PT Supra Boga Lestari established a franchise in Jakarta, Indonesia. After the May 1998 riots, PT Supra Boga Lestari decided it was best to break its ties with Tawa and become independent while using the similarly sounding Ranch Market and Ranch 99 Market names in Indonesia.
Expanding into Texas, two company owned stores were opened near Houston in 2008 and 2009 while at third store was opened in the Dallasâ€"Fort Worth metroplex at Plano in 2010. A fourth Texas location opened up in Carrollton in March 2016 followed by a fifth location in Katy in August 2016. A new location in Austin, TX was mentioned in April 2016, but it has not yet opened as of August 2017.
The company's first store location east of the Mississippi River was open in Edison, New Jersey in January 2017 in a former Pathmark location. A second New Jersey location was opened in April 2017 in Jersey City.
In August 2017, the company opened its first Oregon store, in Beaverton.
Customer base
Although most of its customers are ethnic Chinese Americans and Taiwanese Americans, shoppers also include recent immigrants from China, ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, and others. The chain sells a wide range of imported food products and merchandise from Hong Kong, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Southeast Asia (particularly Vietnam and Thailand). It also carries some domestic products made by Chinese American companies and a limited selection of mainstream American brands. In addition, it has also reached out to pan-Asian customers, especially Filipino Americans and Japanese Americans, by opening locations in areas predominantly populated by people of these two ethnicities.
Because 99 Ranch Market serves a predominantly Chinese American base, Mandarin Chinese serves as the lingua franca of the supermarket and its adjacent businesses. Taiwanese is also spoken as many employees are from Taiwan. In-store PA announcements announcing specials are multi-lingual and often spoken in English, Mandarin, Cantonese with certain stores also using Taiwanese and Vietnamese.
The name of the chain includes "99," a number considered lucky by ethnic Chinese. The number nine in Chinese sounds like the word for "long-lasting."
In earlier times, the company utilized an English slogan of "united at heart for a better future," with the Chinese slogan being "大è¯èˆ‡æ‚¨å…±å‰µæœªä¾†" (Dà Huá yÇ" nÃn gòngchuà ng wèilái - "99 Ranch is creating the future together with you"). As of 2017, the company has grown towards a new and singular English slogan of "Your Favorite Destination For Asian Food Since 1984."
General locations
Generally, the chain locates its stores in newer suburban Mandarin-speaking immigrant communities, such as Milpitas, California, where the supermarket is strategically located near the technology industries of the Silicon Valley which employ many Asian immigrants, and Irvine, California, where wealthy Taiwanese Americans settled during the 1990s.
Non-suburban locations tend to be located in multi-ethnic districts. For instance, the Van Nuys, California and Richmond, California stores are located in multi-cultural neighborhoods and are popular among African American, Mexican American, and white American customers, as well as Chinese-speaking customers.
Older Cantonese Chinese neighborhoods in California have not been as welcoming to the chain. The 99 Ranch in Los Angeles' Chinatown operated in the Bamboo Plaza area for several years, but eventually the store was closed, perhaps due to its obscure location and lack of parking space, and perhaps due to competition from local small grocers, who have maintained their popularity among elderly Chinese American shoppers.
Setting up in suburbia, 99 Ranch Market is often the only Asian American supermarket and shopping center for miles around. For instance, 99 Ranch Market is one of the very few Asian supermarkets operating in the San Fernando Valley.
Given the market chain's premium locations, the costs of rent for tenants are generally high, but other Chinese businesses, such as Sam Woo Restaurants, Chinese traditional medicine shops, and gift stores, have been known to follow 99 Ranch Market to its new locations, with 99 Ranch market becoming the anchor tenant for the smaller stores and restaurants within developing Asian suburban shopping areas. For example, in Phoenix, Arizona, the state's first 99 Ranch Market opened as part of a larger "COFCO Center" that offers a number of Asian restaurants and shops for the city and surrounding areas.
Since 2008, 99 Ranch Market has opened locations in Texas, in particular Houston (2008), Sugar Land (2009), Plano (2010), Carrollton (2016), Katy (2016), and Frisco (expected in 2017). This is in response to the growing population of Asian-Americans in Texas in the 2000s.
Most 99 Ranch Markets are company-owned. The only franchised locations remaining in the United States are those in Las Vegas.
Store layout and offerings
In design, 99 Ranch Market stores are similar to mainstream American supermarkets, with aisles that are wider and less cluttered than in most other Chinese markets. The supermarket accepts credit cards for totals above $5.00 whereas many markets in old Chinatowns do not. Also, a handful of 99 Ranch Market locations have an in-store branch of East West Bank, a major Chinese American bank.
Most 99 Ranch Market locations have a full-service take-out deli serving a combination of Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Szechuan fare. Some of the delis in the markets also feature pre-cooked meats, such as Cantonese roast duck (huo ya) and barbecued pork (Char siu). These stores also have a bakery with cakes and fresh Chinese pastries, most of the bread products and pastries sold in the markets are made inside the store. The 99 Ranch locations that do not have delicatessens and/or bakeries simply operate as bare-bones markets.
99 Ranch Market used to operate a membership VIP card program and send out direct mail circulars with coupons. All of these programs and promotions were discontinued in August, 2007, in favor of offering all customers the same price benefits. Although the chain remains successful and popular, prices are on average generally higher when compared to smaller non-chain Chinese groceries. In 2014, 99 Ranch Market re-launched a new point rewards program known as the Super Rewards Card, where customers gain 1 point for every pre-tax dollar spent. The chain also regularly runs sweepstakes giveaways, having worked with automakers such as Lexus, BMW, and Toyota.
The chain also runs major advertising campaigns, including in-print ads in Chinese-language newspapers such as World Journal and radio ads on Chinese-language radio in Southern California.
References
External links
- Official website
- 99 Ranch Market (in Chinese)
- T & T Supermarket, which previously had operated a joint venture with 99 Ranch Market in Canada
- AsianWeek article: The Malls of Asian America â€" covers the immense popularity of a 99 Ranch Market shopping center in Milpitas, California
- "Grass Jelly, Anyone? 99 Ranch Brings Asian Flavor to East Bay" â€" article from UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism about the 99 Ranch Market in Richmond, California