Firm offers fresh food delivery service

JAKARTA (JP): A new retail delivery service firm, PT FresMart Metro Retail, offers fresh food to customers who don't have time to go shopping themselves, its executive said on Thursday.

The company's president Sahat Parulian Siregar said the business operations of the firm would be officially launched some time next week.

According to Sahat, FresMart was inspired by a similar business run by American Frozen Foods in the U.S.

The firm is targeting some 250,000 families, including expatriates, in the capital, he said.

The target market is based on research recently conducted by the company on 500 Jakarta families who regularly spend more than Rp 100,000 a week on fresh foods, such as meat, chicken and vegetables.

"FresMart has targeted 50 percent of the families to become our members," Sahat, a former executive of DialMart, the country's first retail delivery service firm, said.

His company has promised to deliver orders made before 12 a.m. on the same day, while orders made after 12 a.m., would be delivered on the next day, he said.

The delivery would be totally free of charge but the company would only serve customers who have a minimum total weekly spending of Rp 100,000 each.

Customers could pay the bills through 10 banks, including Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Bank Bukopin and Bank International Indonesia, he added.

Should the company fail to deliver the orders on time, customers would receive Rp 20,000 discount per day, Sahat said.

FresMart will cooperate with cold storage company PT Wira Logitama and transportation firm PT Gogistik, a subsidiary of PT National Gobel, he said.

"With low operational costs, we could offer prices 20 percent lower than the biggest supermarket chain here," he promised.

He added that FresMart would have 900 telephone lines, consisting of 600 lines (telephone number 899 21961) for customer orders and the remaining 300 lines (number 899 21963) for new customer registration.

FresMart is the country's third retail delivery service firm after DialMart and Bebita, which operate in the city offering some basic necessities but not fresh food.

DialMart is controlled by actress Lenny Marlina while Bebita (Smart household shopping) is led by banking and marketing expert Enny Hardjanto. (jun)