From Wallace Supplies to private label, his career spanned more than 30 years.
AFTER working for Foodstuffs in its various guises for over 30 years, Bart Wright, general manager of Foodstuffs Own Brands, retired at the end of last month. He is succeeded by Dave McAteer.
When Bart joined in 1978, it was the National Trading Company he began working for.
It was in the days of Wallace Supplies, which was owned by NTC.
Wallace Supplies was a retailer having both grocery and furniture stores and Bart spent his time servicing the grocery side of the business.
When NTC was bought by Foodstuffs Auckland, Bart moved into the Foodstuffs main office.
Number of roles
He had a number of roles in this new position, mainly under the direction of Kevin Ferguson, now Foodstuffs company secretary.
“I was supervising the maintenance, company insurance and security and other projects in my role as administration officer,” he said.
He did this for about three years before moving into the private label department, these days known as Foodstuffs Own Brands.
“I went into there to get it up and running,” he continued.
It was about a year after Foodstuffs launched its Budget range label and around the time that the PAK’nSAVE concept was introduced to New Zealand.
Bart took over from John Tapp, one of the Foodstuffs buyers who started to work on private label products and then eventually left to go to Albert Gubay’s 3Guys operation. Bart took over the role in 1986 when he left.
“In those days we had just over 30 products and sales were around $6m a year,” he continued.
However, the Pams brand has existed since 1937, becoming quite strong in the early 40s and 50s. But when the Government introduced import licences it gave more power to brands and had a detrimental effect on the growth of private label.
“Private label died a bit of a death,” said Bart. “In the early 80s the Pams brand was reduced to a range of baking products.
“They were essentially home baking products we were buying in bulk and repackaging. They were commodities which were not covered by the import licences.”
Import restrictions
Once the import restrictions were lifted, Foodstuffs’ private label products extended to include processed goods into the range.
“We gradually moved into nonbaking commodities, things like oil, soft drinks, peanut butter, jam, flour and toilet paper. They were basic commodity style products that had an element of processed foods about them.
“That is how private label works. You start off with the basic commodities and move into processed foods and more complex foods until you have built a premium range which the world knocks on your door to buy.
“You start off at the bottom of the processed foods and you gradually work your way through adding more complex and sophisticated products and you have a range covering the entire marketplace.”
Bart says that Foodstuffs Own Brands now has about 1600 food products and, for grocery products, sales of about $800m.
What are Bart’s plans for the future post-FOB.
“Oh, I’m waiting for an international offer to be a retail consultant,” he jokingly responded.
Seriously, he said he would take it as it comes.
“My wife and I will go and live in England for a few months of the summer – we will have a European summer.”
