Wing Yip’s superstore on Purley Way has started a two-year, £15million expansion project.
The work will see the site grow to include a new cold warehouse, entrance lobby, extended shop floor and additional parking – almost doubling the store’s floor space to 75,000 sq ft.
Woon Wing Yip, the company’s founder and owner, presided over the formal “sod-cutting” ceremony last week, along with directors and staff.
“It is a real privilege to be able to officially get the ball rolling on the new extension to our Croydon superstore,” said Albert Yip, the Croydon store director.
“As the nation’s appetite for more adventurous foods continues to develop, so too must our range. While 20 years ago we specialised in Chinese groceries, we have seen the market grow along with consumer tastes – no doubt fuelled by the upsurge in long haul travel to exotic Far Eastern destinations.
“Established Chinese sauces such as sweet and sour and black bean remain as popular as ever, but these days shopping trolleys are far more likely to include authentic products from destinations across the Far East, such as sushi rice from Japan, kimchi ingredients from Korea, rendang curry paste from Malaysia, and rice noodles from Thailand.
Work starting at Wing Yip Purley Way last week, presided over by (from left): Brian Yip, David Yip, Albert Yip, the managing director of the London store, Woon Wing Yip, the business’s owner and founder, Lee Sing Yap, Henry Yap, and Ennevor Yap
“The store expansion will give us the opportunity to grow our range, in keeping with the evolving consumer palate.”
The additional space will provide room for a new wholesale cold store area, an extended small goods floor area, including a butcher and fresh fish counter, 2,000 sq ft entrance lobby, more than 200 new car parking spaces and almost 50 cycle parking spaces.
The new development work is expected to be completed in 2019, with the store remaining open while improvements are being made.
Since 1995, the superstore has played a major part in Wing Yip becoming the UK’s leading Oriental grocer, by providing shoppers in the community and local restaurant and takeaway businesses an authentic range of food and products sourced from the Far East.
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As a happy customer, I am great to see this local business doing well and expanding.
Pity they didn’t take over the premises of Tai Tung either for expansion or to have their own decent restaurant at the same time…..it would have been a vast improvement.