The nation's leading Pan-Asian grocery chain has entered the cookbook space. 99 Ranch Market released Did You Eat Yet? on October 13, 2026 — a collection of 88 recipes written by CEO Alice Chen and now available in e-book form on Apple Books, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, with a printed hardcover edition set to follow later this fall.
The title draws on a phrase common across many Asian cultures: asking whether someone has eaten as a stand-in for expressing love. For Chen, who grew up shopping at 99 Ranch and now leads the company, the book is rooted in that same quiet language of care. "For many of us, our parents and grandparents aren't used to saying 'I love you' out loud, but they always show their love by making our favorite dishes, cutting fruit for us, or simply asking, 'Did you eat yet?'" Chen said. "My hope is that this book helps families create those same moments of love around their own tables."
Across the Menu
The cookbook spans Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, and Southeast Asian cuisines, organized into chapters that mirror different acts of domestic care rather than conventional course categories. A pantry guide leads off, walking readers unfamiliar with Asian specialty ingredients through cooking wines, vinegars, rice varieties, aromatics, and sauces — a practical onramp that reflects the grocer's core retail mission. From there, chapters cover breakfast dishes, shareable small plates, rice preparations, noodle recipes, proteins, vegetable-forward dishes, broths and stews, and desserts. Personal stories from 99 Ranch team members appear throughout, grounding the recipes in real family histories.
The recipes are calibrated for working households: some take as little as 10 minutes, while others are built for longer weekend cooking sessions. That flexibility positions the book as a tool for everyday meal planning as much as a cultural document — a combination that aligns with broader grocery and foodservice trends around convenience without sacrificing authenticity.
What It Means for Operators
For grocery retailers and foodservice professionals tracking the Asian food segment, the cookbook is a brand-building vehicle with meaningful downstream implications. By publishing under the 99 Ranch name, parent company Tawa Supermarket, Inc. — which operates 66 stores across 11 states — reinforces its authority in Pan-Asian ingredients at a moment when consumer interest in Asian cuisines continues to grow across retail and restaurant channels. Cookbooks tied to retail brands have proven effective at deepening customer loyalty and driving ingredient sales, and a title like this one, built around pantry staples stocked in-store, functions as a long-form product discovery tool.
The move also reflects a wider pattern in specialty grocery: chains leveraging editorial content to compete with both mass-market retailers and the expanding footprint of Asian restaurant concepts. As restaurant and hospitality operators continue to expand Pan-Asian menus to meet evolving diner expectations, a resource like Did You Eat Yet? positions 99 Ranch as a supplier-side authority for both home cooks and culinary professionals sourcing specialty ingredients.
For food and beverage industry observers — including the team at Food & Beverage Magazine — the release underscores how grocery brands are increasingly competing in the content and culture space, not just on price and SKU depth.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
