David Jones to roll out food hall in Victoria
So upmarket retailer is rolling out its food halls around Australia.
After Sydney, the next one is going to be in Melbourne, in the swish Malvern Central shopping centre.
It won’t be hard to find – it will be right next to the boutique David Jones outlet which opened there in 2013.
The expansion around Australia is all part of David Jones’ $100 million investment into the sector rolling out food stores around the country.
The Melbourne food hall follows the opening of the revamped food store at Sydney’s Bondi Junction, with its premium food offerings, ranging from meat, seafood, fresh groceries and packaged meals. That complemented the specially designed restaurant run by chef Neil Perry.
The Malvern Central food hall will open in March 2018.
And the market for that will be the customers from high-earning households in Malvern and the nearby wealthy suburbs of Armadale and Toorak.
The 550 square metre Malvern outlet will be one quarter the size of the flagship Bondi store.
And it won’t have a Neil Perry restaurant.
It will offer products from the new premium David Jones Food label, and will include a convenience selection comprising prepared vegetables, salads and fruit, and innovative ready meals.
There will also be ready-to-eat take-home options like rotisserie chickens, sandwiches, sushi and coffee from the Espresso Bar, not to mention David Jones Food products, ranging from ice-cream and confectionary to meat, herbs and spices.
“We are excited to introduce to Malvern a premium food retail offer focused on convenience, provenance, freshness and taste that will complement our existing fashion, beauty and homewares offering,’’ David Jones group executive, food, Pieter de Wet told The Australian.
“Malvern Central is the ideal location for this offering, with an accessible centre that lends itself to convenience food shopping and a local customer whom we know are well-travelled food lovers with high expectations for food quality and freshness.
“We are confident the new David Jones food proposition will resonate strongly in this area.’’
David Jones plans to open a food hall in Wollongong in October.
by Leon Gettler, August 18th 2017
