SM Supermarket Brand Guidelines: SM North EDSA’s 1985 Grocer and the SM Markets Family

SM North EDSA, November 1985.

SM Supermarket is the supermarket chain of the SM Group, the Philippine conglomerate founded by Henry Sy Sr. Its story begins inside a shopping mall. English Wikipedia says that when SM North EDSA, in Quezon City in Metro Manila, opened on 8 November 1985 as The SM Center North EDSA, the first mall built by SM Prime Holdings, its first tenants were SM’s fifth department store and the group’s first supermarket. The mall was renamed The SM City North EDSA in 1986, became SM City North EDSA in 2002 and is now called simply SM North EDSA.

The group behind the supermarket began with shoes. English Wikipedia says that Henry Sy Sr. started ShoeMart, a small shoe shop in Carriedo, in Manila, in 1958, and that the initials of that name became the SM of the group; a separate English Wikipedia article on SM Retail dates the founding of Shoemart to 15 January 1960. Both accounts agree that the shoe shop grew into a department store, and that the department store came long before the supermarket.

The supermarket carries the same two-letter prefix as the group’s malls, its SM Store department stores and other SM retail names, such as SM Hypermarket. On the sign, the initials come first and a plain descriptive word follows, so the supermarket is presented as one member of a larger SM family rather than as a stand-alone brand.

The mall link has stayed. The Philippine Star reported in May 2024 that SM Supermarket stores offer a broad range of food “within SM malls,” in contrast with the group’s two other grocery formats, which are described below.

Three formats under one umbrella.

SM Supermarket is one of three grocery formats that the group now groups under the umbrella name SM Markets. English Wikipedia says that SM Supermarket, SM Hypermarket and Savemore came to be known collectively by that name, and SM Investments Corporation lists all three under SM Markets on its own brands page, together with WalterMart Supermarket and the Alfamart convenience stores, which English Wikipedia describes as a joint venture between SM and an Indonesian company.

The three formats are told apart by size and setting. The Philippine Star reported in May 2024 that SM Supermarket offers a wide food range inside SM malls, that SM Hypermarket combines a supermarket with a department store, and that Savemore is a neighbourhood grocery format found in communities around the country. The paper counted 66 supermarkets, 54 hypermarkets and 223 Savemore stores at that date, and reported that SM Markets had opened 12 stores in 2023, in places including Iloilo, Bataan, Leyte and General Santos.

The hypermarket format grew partly out of another retailer. GMA News Online reported in August 2009 that SM Investments, which then owned 60 per cent of Pilipinas Makro Inc., a warehouse business serving small shops, hotels, restaurants and canteens, had already converted the Makro outlet in Mandaluyong into an SM Hypermarket and had closed the Makro stores in Novaliches and in Makati for conversion. The same report listed Makro outlets in places including Pampanga, Cavite, Batangas, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Cebu, and noted the group’s smaller Save More supermarket format. English Wikipedia now lists Pilipinas Makro as dissolved, with most of its locations converted to SM Hypermarket and Savemore stores.

The ownership structure behind the stores was set in 2006. English Wikipedia says that in that year the board of SM Investments announced a restructuring that created two companies: SM Retail Inc., which took ownership of SM Supermarket, SM Hypermarket and SM Department Store, now SM Store, and SM Land Inc., which took the group’s property assets. SM Retail, based in Pasay, remains a subsidiary of SM Investments Corporation, the encyclopaedia says.

Signs, own labels and store networks.

Supermarket chains in the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States present themselves through a small set of fixed things: the name on the store sign, the colours of the fascia and the carrier bag, the layout of the shop floor and the names of their own-label ranges. These are the parts of a grocery identity that shoppers meet every week, and they are the parts this guide describes.

Names often carry a group with them. In the Philippines, SM Supermarket and SM Hypermarket put the initials of the SM Group ahead of a plain descriptive word, and the SM Bonus own label repeats the same two letters, while Savemore, a third format in the same family, has a name of its own. Elsewhere, a chain may keep a founder’s name, a place name or an English word written in a local script, and this guide gives each as the company or a dated source shows it.

Ownership takes several forms. Some chains belong to listed retail groups or family conglomerates with interests far beyond food; others are run as co-operatives owned by their store operators, or as businesses owned by their employees. Where a chain has changed hands, merged or been demerged, this guide gives the owner and the date from a dated source, and describes any deal not completed as pending.

Store formats, networks and own-label ranges are given in the companies’ own terms and with their dates, because networks change quickly and a store count is only true on the day it was published. Founders, owners and retail groups are named as corporate pages and the press record them. Colours and typefaces are treated as an unofficial interpretation unless a source documents them, and no sign, logo or package is reproduced.

A prefix, a family and two own labels.

The SM naming system is easiest to see in the grocery formats. Two of them carry the group’s initials ahead of a plain description, SM Supermarket and SM Hypermarket, so the name states what the store is. The third, Savemore, has a name of its own, and print has not always spelled it the same way: GMA News Online wrote “Save More” in 2009, English Wikipedia uses both “SaveMore” and “SM Savemore,” and SM Investments writes “Savemore” on its brands page. For a designer, that drift is a reminder of how much work a single fixed spelling does on a fascia.

Own labels carry the family further into the aisles. The Daily Tribune reported in February 2026 that SM Markets sells a private label called SM Bonus, and a second, Everyday, aimed at basic groceries and household essentials. The paper said SM Retail’s private labels cover fresh meat and poultry, such as chicken and eggs; frozen goods, such as mixed vegetables; canned and packaged foods, such as pasta, sweetcorn, rice and coconut oil; and non-food items, such as tissue, washing-up liquid and tube ice. The name SM Bonus repeats the group initials, so the store name and the own label share the same two letters.

The network also reaches beyond its own names. SM Investments lists WalterMart Supermarket and Alfamart beside the three SM Markets formats, so a shopper in the Philippines can meet SM-owned grocery shops under signs that do not carry the SM initials at all. The supermarket keeps the prefix; the partnerships keep their own names.

For a design guide, SM Supermarket shows how a retail group can build a grocery identity out of a borrowed prefix: the initials from a shoe shop, a plain descriptive word and an own label that repeats both. Compare Sheng Siong, a Singapore supermarket chain that also opened its first store in 1985, and Foodland, a Bangkok supermarket chain. For this guide we use a deep blue, a mango yellow and a leaf green with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep SM Supermarket’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.