NORTH STAR Meat Merchants, Inc. said it is planning to work with Alfamart to convert some of the latter’s convenience stores to community-based meat shops.

“We’re going to take the fight to the wet market at a community level. We’re tinkering and tweaking 12 branches and converting those to community-based meat shops,” North Star Chief Executive Officer Anthony Ng said in an interview.

He said the partners “want to transform Alfamart from a convenience store to a mini meat shop.”

The project will be rolled out to the majority of Alfamart branches once the firm has finished the testing and data gathering from the initial 12 stores.

“We want to convert 1,000 stores to mini meat shops by bringing the talipapa (wet market) to the community level in a safe and compliant fashion,” Mr. Ng said.

North Star is eyeing to prioritize Alfamart’s top branches in the greater Manila area.

“This is very revolutionary. [It will have] proper facilities, aircon, freezer, the chiller — it will be very compliant. The meat will be pre-packed in a vacuum seal, ready to cook, designed for the common Filipino household,” Mr. Ng said.

“We have the technology and storage. We have a very progressive way of doing our inventories. Because of how we do things, we are able to provide prices at par or lower than the wet markets,” he added.

The meat retailer last week announced that it inaugurated its solar energy project in Guiguinto, Bulacan with WEnergy Power Pilipinas, Inc.

North Star is an end-to-end fresh frozen meat retailer and operates in SM Markets, WalterMart, and Alfamart across the Philippines.

Its cold storage facilities in Bulacan and Cebu have a capacity of 8.09 million kilograms and can deliver up to 120,000 kilograms of meat daily.

North Star has also invested more than P1.8 billion worth of assets, including cold storage, a meat cutting-processing plant, and in-house equipment fabrication and motor pool facility. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson

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