To strengthen its agricultural supply chain while relieving the plight of our local farmers, WalterMart Supermarket—one of the biggest supermarket chains in the Philippines, launched Palengke Fresh with Mayani, the fastest-growing farm-to-table digital platform.
Through this program, WalterMart will procure directly from Mayani’s network of over 12,000 smallholder farmers to provide fresher produce with better value to all its shoppers.
“Our commitment to the communities and our customers is to win through malasakit from farm to market,” says Rose Caalam, General Manager of WalterMart Supermarket. “Malasakit to ensure a sustainable income for our farmers during this pandemic through Mayani, malasakit to our customers by providing them quality and affordable fresh produce assortment, and malasakit to employees by making our proud local ambassadors of fresh and healthy products.”
WalterMart has been helping various farmers cooperatives and associations since the roll-out of Palengke Fresh in 2019. Given WalterMart’s expansive network of community shopping malls across Metro Manila, Central Luzon, and South Luzon, the program sought to leverage such footprint to aid more rural farming communities by integrating Mayani into WalterMart’s responsible, “support local” value chain.
“This team-up is a huge leap forward for our smallholder farmers not only in terms of higher rural incomes for them, but the predictability of it during these volatile times,” remarked JT Solis, the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Mayani.
Solis also pointed out that because of Mayani’s role as the direct platform conduit between farmers and big commercial customers such as WalterMart and other reputable retailers, the pricing of fresh produce on supermarket shelves becomes even more competitive drawing from supply chain efficiencies and lowered transaction costs.
On Palengke Fresh weekends, WalterMart Supermarket mounts a “bagsakan” market in the parking lot of WalterMart malls, thereby making it a safe and preferred shopping destination among customers.
On top of this, for the whole month of May, WalterMart is also supporting various community pantries that sprouted in different parts of Luzon. It encourages all of its shoppers to purchase the local produce in its Palengke Fresh and have them donated to different community pantries in areas where WalterMart is. For as low as ₱50, customers can get a Chopsuey Pack to uplift those grassroots communities.
WalterMart is available both online at www.waltermart.com and in-store with 39 WalterMart Supermarket branches in Luzon.
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