THE COUNTDOWN to Christmas also marks the start of the annual inter-family competition for the most reunion-worthy holiday spread, and delegated household cooks are now busy scouring for the best ingredients that will make their yuletide feast the highlight of the season.

Not everyone is in on the rivalry, however, some families have opted out of the usual grand festivities in deference to the typhoon victims who have yet to recover from the recent calamities.

Enter the supermarkets, which claim that clans who have been bitten by this year’s austerity bug can have an equally memorable Christmas with ready-to-serve Noche Buena fare like marbled ham and quezo de bola, which now front the display shelves of groceries across the metro.

To appeal to traditional market goers, supermarkets are laying their stores out to resemble community wet markets, slashing their prices and expanding their fresh produce sections all while keeping the convenience of doing groceries in a clean environment.

There’s the ubiquitous SM Supermarket, SM Hypermarket and SaveMore Market, which offer an air-conditioned indoor wet market with neat lanes set aside for fresh meat, seafood, fruits and vegetables.

These outlets aim to cater to both operate-it-yourself types and people on the-go. There’s a selection of local and imported raw seafood like San Francisco crabs, suahe, catfish, stonefish, mantis, and eel in addition to easy-to-prepare dishes such as chicken pandan, chicken Yakitori and lumpiang shanghai. Also available are affordable steaks – said to be personally selected by Supervalue, Inc. president Herbert Sy like Maltique and Yakiniku beef. Ready-to-eat desserts like buko pandan and fruit salad complete the Christmas feast sans the hassle of toiling for hours in the kitchen.

‘Our rates are actually lower than the prices at wet markets where chicken, for example, sells for P140 per kilogram, while we sell it for P120,’ SM Supermarket and SaveMore operations head Mylene Mendoza told Business World in a phone interview.

For early risers, Ms. Mendoza said that SaveMore, whose branches are located near wet markets and large residential communities, opens as early as 6 a.m.

‘To foster the ‘suki’ set-up that ‘draw consumers to wet markets, our personnel have been trained to familiarize [themselves with the preferences of] frequent shoppers [such as] your favorite cut of chicken:’ she said, adding that the popular ‘takal-takal’ or by piece purchase has also been permitted at these groceries.

Hypermarket Shopwise similarly offers the wet market setup in an enclosed and well-lit venue. Aside from fresh and organic fruits and vegetables, it has stocked up on Aussie fresh porterhouse, Meltique rolled chuck loin, prime rib roast, beef morcon, strip loin roast, and Meltique sukiyaki, as well as Cornish hen, Butterball turkey, maple leaf US duckling and other marinated cutups, priced at consumer-friendly rates for the holidays.

The hypermarket chain, known for its wide range of merchandise, is also identified with its quirky take on customer assistance personnel-on-skates that it claims can respond more quickly to customers shopping concerns. Shopwise large reusable shopping bags, a project with global conservation organization World Wildlife Fund, also allow customers to make a small contribution to environment conservation while shopping for items on their Christmas list.