harvey nichols The Marmalade Group's exclusive partnership with Harvey Nichols is manifested in stylishly stacked shelves of the Harvey Nichols own brand food products. Packed in the unique award wining designs of Michael Nash Associates, a delicious range of jams, chutneys, pastas, sauces, chocolates, teas and biscuits beg to be taken home and eaten or popped into bags as perfect little gifts. Driven by the demand for high quality, the selection of products (often requiring the development of unique recipes) is a careful process, involving searches for producers across the small villages of Europe. Now available at our own Singaporean doorstep.     www.harveynichols.com         What's in Style WeekendBT 20-21 April 2002
	Brit sensations HIP UK retailer Harvey Nichols has hooked up with Singapore's Marmalade restaurant group to spice up the gourmet food retail scene here with their upmarket range of specialty foods. The partnership will see about a third of Harvey Nichols' gourmet range being sold at the Pantry, a new bistro that Marmalade is opening in Palais Renaissance later this year. Harvey Nichols' famed Foodmarket is like the British equivalent of New York's Dean & DeLuca. In fact, it was perhaps this trendy marketplace that shifted the public's perception of the retailer from 'established' to 'established and hip' some 10 years ago. Says Dominic Ford, its restaurants and food retail director: 'The Harvey Nichols' food line is relatively young - about 10 years old, compared to the store's 180 year-old history. But when we were developing the line, that by default led to a particular styling and image of the store itself. We put food retailing up on the fifth floor, when it used to always be associated with the basement, and turned the shopping experience around with our stylish, glamorous packaging of the food.' The line took off - not just due to the packaging, but the quality therein, Mr Ford insists - and the company spent the next five years resisting offers to take it abroad. 'We held back until we were satisfied with what we were doing although there was tremendous pressure,' he recalls. Today, Harvey Nichols' food is sold in premium stores in Japan, Paris, Germany and Canada. And by the second half of the year, it will be available in Singapore. 'We aren't looking for a distribution network here. But what we're looking for is an individual or company that will look after the product and merchandise it as carefully as we would, so to maintain the exclusivity and profile of the brand,' he notes.
	Marmalade's partners Shareen Khattar and Nicholas Chan affirm that that's exactly what they intend to do for the brand here. With obvious delight at this great partnership, Mr Chan states: 'The target market of the Harvey Nichols' client and the client base of Marmalade, albeit 7,000 miles away - are very aligned. The emphasis on quality and inventiveness of products and the emphasis on style are entirely synonymous with two groups.' 'It ties in totally with what we want to do at Marmalade and being at Palais Renaissance, the Pantry with a bistro will have an exclusive and high-profile location,' adds Ms Khattar. Entertain in style Located where Fosters' restaurant used to be, the Marmalade Pantry is to be a casual and stylish eatery with an ingredient-driven menu and an emphasis on quality, homemade and health-conscious items. Harvey Nichols' food products will allow the Pantry to become a one-stop shop for dinner parties or food gifts. The venture came about when Marmalade approached Hong Kong tycoon Dickson Poon, a regular at its restaurants, with the idea of a food tie-up of sorts. 'We were thinking of ways to expand our group, and the obvious was right before us,' recalls Mr Chan. Mr Poon, who had bought Harvey Nichols in 1991, was receptive to the idea and asked them to contact Mr Ford. Incidentally, Mr Ford had been handpicked by Mr Poon to direct the Foodmarket project from the start, having met him when Mr Ford was formerly at the Mandarin hotel in Hong Kong. Besides the award-winning stylish, witty packaging - designed by Michael Nash Associates - what is it about the Harvey Nichols' food line that elevates it from merely 'branded' to 'gourmet'? 'We deal directly with our producers,' points out Mark Lewis, the 'grocery buyer', a seemingly tongue-in-cheek title that belies the jetsetting nature of his job. 'Obviously, it's not just stylish packaging, but we've got to maintain the quality of our foodstuff,' he says. The pasta sauce, for example, comes from a small town in Italy. Harvey Nichols' makes the minimal orders, by the pot sizes, even. In usual supermarket practice, buyers would go to suppliers that can sell them container loads. But because of the name behind them, Harvey Nichols' also manages to buy at a scale that small delicatessens can't afford. 'It's a unique position we're in. You can't have volume without sacrificing the quality,' says Mr Ford. The bottomline of the Marmalade-Harvey Nichols' tie-up is this: that you'll be able to give 'branded' dinner parties at home, entertaining both stylishly and easily. 'You can throw a dinner party together at a drop of a hat, without sacrificing any element of glamour or more important, quality. The exponential success of our home catering business is an indication that there's a fast-growing base of people who are entertaining at home more often,' says Mr Chan. What Marmalade Pantry intends to stock will include Harvey Nichols' basic range and also the exciting new products. 'It's food retail with a twist,' says Ms Khattar. Included also will be knowledgeable and personable service when you shop, she promises. And don't expect just the traditional English fare either, as Harvey Nichols' food line embraces international cuisine most heartily. Japanese and Asian fare, as well as tastes from Australasia, are new ranges that are being developed for Harvey Nichols' at the moment. You may not be able to have Fosters' scones and English steaks at Palais Renaissance any more, but in its place, there'll be Harvey Nichols' Italian pasta sauces, English mustard, and Asian chutney. Olde English has bowed out, but cool Brittania's moving in.