T&T Opens U.S. Grocery Flagship in Seattle’s Bellevue Neighborhood | Eater Seattle

"Opened Thursday, December 5 in a 76,000-square-foot space inside a former Walmart at the Marketplace at Factoria in Bellevue, this U.S. flagship is officially the largest Asian grocer in Washington state and, as CEO Tina Lee told Eater Seattle, larger than all of the chain’s 36 Canadian stores. Lee emphasizes the opening-week deals, asking, "How much would you pay for a bunch of green onions?" and answering, "During opening week, you’ll be buying four for $1." Other examples she cites include a bag of avocados for $2.88, Napa cabbage for 68 cents, and Envy apples for $1.68 per pound. The store offers a private-label collection focused on "Asian favorite products," with top sellers such as steamed barbecue pork buns, green onion pancakes, frozen xiaolongbao sold with a thin strip of paper to steam it, and freeze-dried shiitake mushroom snacks that she suggests eating as a replacement for potato chips. On food safety she says, "What we’re known for in Canada is food safety," and explains: "We built a kitchen facility where we make the ‘secret sauce...’ We’ve [made] it so that you basically have an inspector on-site [from the CFIA] full-time. We built them an office to allow them to be there any time to inspect our processes so we can get products from all across the provinces in Canada, but it’s also at export level to support the store in Seattle." The operation also had to adopt FDA procedures to operate in the U.S., and Lee notes that "You actually hear the company make recalls more openly than other Chinese grocers," adding, "We’re a very transparent business, and I think that’s been part of our success, honestly." She praises the hot-food bar, describing it as an "Asian food buffet" that features a whole, butterflied fried chicken and a marinated Papa crispy chicken priced at $15, and she is ready to name the store’s barbecue pork, roast duck, and soy chicken among the city’s best: "We committed to using pork that is raised without antibiotics," Lee says, and "[For all of these foods,] we level up the raw ingredients and sell it for a price that is equal to or cheaper than what is out there." The store will also sell a kit to make Beijing duck (labeled as Peking duck). As a broader strategy, Lee says the goal is to make groceries affordable while focusing on higher-quality ingredients to encourage multiple weekly shopping trips rather than one big weekly shop; she points to the in-house sliced white bread made without preservatives as an example: "We don’t sell it on the second day... It only has a five-day shelf-life. Why? It’s only 12 slices and we don’t want to add preservatives." She concludes by framing the opening as a test of the business model: "I think there will be a bit of a social experiment on how the company model of an Asian fresh market lands and hopefully succeeds in Bellevue. If it works, it will give us the confidence to put out so many more stores." - Courtney E. Smith