Tucked inside iSQUARE in Tsim Sha Tsui, the energetic shopping and nightlife district of Kowloon in Hong Kong, is Market Place. At first glance, it appears much like many small convenience focused grocery stores found in similar locations around the world, but once inside, you will find a bright, spotlessly clean environment that is an almost perfect microcosm of modern Asian food retail. Here the fruits are presented like precious heirlooms, each individually wrapped and enclosed in clear packaging that oozes upscale premium and hand selected.  A place where peaches are stored in tennis ball tubes and grapes come in protected foam baskets. Each fresh item nestled carefully in its own carrier.

Market Place is one of Hong Kong’s upscale convenience focused grocery stores tucked inside a hybrid shopping center and train station in Tsim Sha Tsui. At Market Place you can grab food for now, like snacks for your ride home or for lunch, or groceries for later. The store is well placed in a busy high traffic concourse ideal for tourists grabbing a quick bite or lunch and commuters getting dinner on their way home. I passed the store multiple times when I was catching the train, and also visited later in the evening when the local people were doing their shopping after work.

Each individually designed package perfectly combines presentation, preservation and convenience. Peaches come packed in plastic tennis ball tubes to keep them from bruising. Pomelos are in handwoven yarn holders so they’re easier to carry. Grapes are placed in woven foam trays inside plastic clam shells. Everything feels curated and precious; even the apples which come in bundles of pairs or fours. There is no option to grab only one. Nothing has been touched by human hands from the factory to the customer. 

All of this packaging comes at a cost: both financial and environmental. This is premium shopping for luxury imported fruits in a premium location but the quality gives customers confidence that they are getting what they pay for. They can inspect every apple without directly handling or damaging them.

Beyond the fresh food packaging the rest of the product selection is also very different to what we would find in the United States. I noticed flavors I do not normally see in the U.S grocery stores especially in the snack aisles. One prevalent flavor in Hong Kong and throughout Asia is durian, a large, sweet tropical fruit known for its creamy texture and distinctive smell. Despite being known in Asia as the “King of Fruits”, it has never caught on as a fresh fruit in the US because of availability and odor. At Market Place there was no shortage of durian and durian flavorings. There was a whole freezer section devoted to durian with products ranging from durian ice cream to durian flavored pizza. Perhaps it’s time for durian flavor to hit the USA?

Brands that are familiar to us in the States also come in unfamiliar flavors. I came across an entire wall of Lays chips in varieties I have never seen before: like Kyushu Seaweed, Truffle, Tomato Ketchup, and Carbonara. Some flavors were inspired by familiar Asian flavors, others were playful twists on American comfort foods. There were lots of pizza flavoured snacks; chips, crackers, and Pretz sticks. One bag even claimed to taste like tomato soup, which the author can confirm it indeed did. Nearby shelves were filled with seafood flavored options including shrimp, scallion, and sea urchin. One brand, Calbee, had an entire section dedicated to shrimp-flavored chips in multiple variations. Market Place seems to have something for everyone, the items vying for attention with bright, bold packaging often covered in illustration.

That same energy carried over into the drinks section, where small, single-serve juice boxes lined the shelves. Many were fruit-flavored, and the packaging felt playful, with bright colors and bold type. Some came in milk-carton-style boxes, others in soft pouches or mini bottles. Like the chips, they were designed to catch your eye, easy to grab, easy to drink, and clearly made with presentation in mind.