Report: Cold Storage outlet at PJ’s first shopping mall to close down

Ida Lim

15 December 2019 at 10:10 pm

According to a report, this Cold Storage outlet initiated a sale last Saturday in conjunction with its upcoming closure, with most of its items cleared off by 5pm on that day itself. — Reuters pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 16 — The Cold Storage supermarket — which had operated in Petaling Jaya’s first-ever shopping centre Jaya Supermarket and continued to do so at the latter’s current iteration as Jaya Shopping Centre — will be closing down by the end of this year, a report has said.

According to local paper The Edge Financial Daily, this Cold Storage outlet initiated a sale last Saturday in conjunction with its upcoming closure, with most of its items cleared off by 5pm on that day itself.

The paper cited the outlet’s employees as saying that it will be closing on December 31, 2019.

The Edge said that Jaya Supermarket which was built in 1974 was the pioneer shopping centre in Petaling Jaya, with Cold Storage which has been in business in Malaysia since 1963 operating an outlet in this building sometime before 1980 before later branding it as Giant supermarket.

According to The Edge, Jaya Supermarket’s building was knocked down in 2009 and was replaced by a new mall named Jaya Shopping Centre, with Cold Storage back as a tenant when the mall opened its doors again in 2014.

The Cold Storage brand offers fresh produce, as well as local and imported products.

The Edge said that Cold Storage comes under GCH Retail (M) Sdn Bhd which also operates several other brands including Giant supermarket and hypermarket chain, noting that GCH had 147 outlets locally in 2014 but to date has less than 100 supermarkets and hypermarkets.

The paper also said its own calculations showed that 13 Giant and Cold Storage outlets have been closed down this year.

But the paper also noted this was part of GCH’s restructuring of its business to match competition in the retail industry, including its relaunching of 30 of its Giant outlets this year as well as expansion of its ShopSmart convenience store chain with 500 such outlets expected in the pipeline over the next decade.