Gourmet enterprise sees Sands China’s commitment to local SMEs
To further support local procurement and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) growth, Sands China has chosen to acquire product from a ‘Made-in-Macao’ enterprise to supply a variety of gourmet products to its five properties.
City Gourmet Company Limited, a local company established in 2007, has been supplying gourmet products from smoked meats to cold-cuts since 2016.
Due to the ready availability of products through the company in Macau, food and beverage companies supplied by them are likely to obtain fresher products compared to accessing product supply from neighboring regions.
City Gourmet currently produces cooked and fine gourmet foods, and tailor-made products for its clients.
The local firm became one of the suppliers to the gaming operator after a successful introduction its products and services to Sands China.
Motivated by Sands China’s launching of the SME program, City Gourmet initiated the partnership, which Sands China welcomed.
Sands China’s food and beverage team was then sent to conduct a quality assurance inspection and took a look at the firm’s standard of food hygiene at their facilities and approved the supplier after ensuring the quality of the food being served to guests.
As an example of Sands China’s aim of assisting local enterprises to grow along with the integrated resorts, Sands China quickly placed an order of nearly three tons of gourmet foods in its first transaction with the firm.
City Gourmet currently supplies 22 of Sands China’s food and beverage outlets.
“The first order was very quick. In two-weeks they started to place orders and the volume was between two and three tons of products,” said Simon Tam, general manager of City Gourmet.
According to Tam, Sands China’s Local Small, Medium and Micro Suppliers Support Program serves as an advantage to his enterprise, noting that the gaming operator’s purchasing team showed support even before the formal partnership commenced.
“When we started to contact The Venetian, the purchasing team was very supportive to us,” Tam noted.
“When they knew that we provide Made in Macao products, they were very keen and happy to visit us and see what we could supply to them,” the entrepreneur continued.
Tam also remarked that Sands China champions the government policy on prioritizing purchases from SMEs established in the territory.
“Sands China is also very supportive of the Macau government policy. Just [as] during their invitational matching session, they allowed us to showcase our products, and the procurement team responded fast,” recalled the entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, the general manager highlighted that the human resources situation is still a challenge being faced by local SMEs, noting that the bottleneck could hinder the growth of its businesses.
Due to the strict policies over imported labor, the lack of manpower remains a challenge to the company which resulted in having to refuse a local hotels’ request for the supply of gourmet products.
“Macau lacks this kind of manpower. What most companies are facing is this problem: they can’t get the right people to do the work for them,” Tam lamented.
Tam also hoped that the government would resource local enterprises by employing non-residents.
“I hope the government can allow us to a have bigger [non-resident to resident] workers’ proportion to make our factory production power bigger and [to] supply more quality products,” expressed the entrepreneur.
Yet despite these hurdles, Tam is grateful that Sands China’s SME programs, along with its procurement team have significantly assisted them in enhancing service quality and range of products that they offer to the gaming operator’s enterprises.
Even considering the scale of Sands China’s operation, the entrepreneur noted that he never felt intimidated by the size of its client due to its continuous support for their business; treating the enterprise as valued partners.
Although there are plans to expand the business in a bid to cater to the demands of local integrated resorts and to promote local products, City Gourmet is currently focusing on supplying top quality products to its clients.
Having been a supplier of Sands China for over a year, Tam emphasized that he sees a potential opportunity for significant turnover volume.
City Gourmet acknowledged that the swift and accommodating response from the procurement team of Sands China has assisted them to plan for production and on-time delivery to the properties.
Sands China has been closely involved in activities that benefit SMEs such as giving them access to direct business opportunities.
To continually demonstrate the company’s commitment to supporting local enterprises as part of the operator’s corporate social responsibility, Sands China has continuously been involved in purchasing local products.
To further support these local entrepreneurs, Sands China conducts a ‘Sands China Procurement Academy,’ aiming to develop local SME suppliers by sharing business knowledge and skills, helping them gain experience and capacity to work with large-scale international customers like Sands China.
In line with the government’s policy of “buy local,” the gaming operator has continually expressed its aim of seeing local SMEs become a significant part of the growth of the region’s economy.
Thus, its academy program provides tailor-made practical training modules to local SMEs, presenting them with a certificate upon graduating from the academy.
Graduating suppliers will become preferential suppliers under otherwise equal circumstances. The academy is targeted toward local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), micro-enterprises, young entrepreneurs, and “Made-in-Macao” enterprises.
This article was sponsored by
Sands China Ltd.
