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Monday, July 7, 2025

Anand Low Price opens 10th supermarket during pandemic

by

1081 days ago
20220721

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While many com­pa­nies held back in­vest­ments due to the eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ties the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought, the Anand Low Price Group of Com­pa­nies (ALPG) is find­ing suc­cess in ex­pand­ing its su­per­mar­ket chain to small com­mu­ni­ties.

ALPG on Thurs­day opened its tenth su­per­mar­ket since the pan­dem­ic hit in 2020, es­tab­lish­ing Anand Low Price Su­per­mar­ket and Liquor Store at 150 Cipero Road, Vic­to­ria Vil­lage in San Fer­nan­do.

Chair­man Dr Rolph Bal­go­b­in said while many com­pa­nies felt con­tent­ed with hold­ing back on spend­ing to avoid risks, ALPG adopt­ed a dif­fer­ent strat­e­gy by seiz­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties through ser­vice to com­mu­ni­ties and not just op­er­at­ing based on prof­it and loss.

“We cel­e­brate the open­ing of an­oth­er am­bi­tious un­der­tak­ing by the Anand Low Price Group. There are very few, if any, com­pa­nies that are ex­pand­ing in Trinidad right now. Peo­ple are afraid, of­ten­times, to in­vest. There is a lot of eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty and peo­ple are gam­bling on wait­ing,” Bal­go­b­in said.

With many young peo­ple un­em­ployed, Bal­go­b­in said the su­per­mar­ket pro­vides an in­come for res­i­dents and an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to de­vel­op skills. He said while no one else in the sec­tor was ex­pand­ing, the group was con­fi­dent based on founder Anand Ram­nar­ine Singh’s 42 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in re­tail.

While the Vic­to­ria Vil­lage branch is not as ex­ten­sive as those in Fyz­abad, Debe, La Ro­maine and South Oropouche, Bal­go­b­in em­pha­sised it was not a mi­ni mart, as it has all the items sold at oth­er branch­es.

Di­rec­tor Nicholas Ram­nar­ine Singh said ALPG be­gan in­tro­duc­ing in­no­v­a­tive mi­ni stores since the pan­dem­ic be­gan, start­ing with its South Park branch and ex­tend­ing to South Oropouche, Fyz­abad and Rousil­lac over the past two and a half years.

While the group has in­vest­ed in its guest hous­es and op­er­ates hard­ware, restau­rants, fit­ness cen­tres and night­clubs, Nicholas said it fo­cused on its su­per­mar­ket chain as an es­sen­tial busi­ness dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. With ris­ing food prices af­fect­ing com­mu­ni­ties, he said it was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring af­ford­able shop­ping to peo­ple by cut­ting back on mar­gins.

Fel­low di­rec­tor Chelsea Ram­nar­ine Singh said man­age­ment no­ticed a de­mand for house­hold es­sen­tials over lux­u­ry goods, pos­si­bly due to T&T’s cur­rent eco­nom­ic con­di­tion. She said glob­al food short­ages, which caused a spike in food prices, led to many house­holds hav­ing less dis­pos­able and ef­fec­tive in­come than be­fore.

“In or­der to serve these cus­tomers, we have elect­ed to fo­cus on house­hold ne­ces­si­ties at these lo­ca­tions, which have been well-re­ceived thus far,” she said.

The Vic­to­ria Vil­lage branch boasts of be­ing in an ide­al lo­ca­tion along Cipero Road, the main thor­ough­fare for mo­torists and com­muters get­ting to and from San Fer­nan­do, con­nect­ing to towns like Pe­nal, Debe, Princes Town and Bar­rack­pore. It will al­so cater to the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties of Pleas­antville and Ste Madeleine and the many near­by busi­ness­es.


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