HE IS yet another example of poacher-turned-gamekeeper.
Starting off in life as a merchandiser then sales rep for Pepsi in this country, Clinton Beuvink worked for a number of brand owners before opting to cross the fence and become a retailer.
He opened a high class food outlet in Glen Innes he called Nosh. It was a brave move to set up a fairly upmarket store opposite PAK’nSAVE in Apirana Avenue.
I went to see it for myself soon after it opened and it was difficult to find a parking space.
Ah, I thought, it’s going to be a big hit and, not being far from wealthy suburbs like St Heliers and Kohimarama, it’s bound to be a success – attracting all those wealthy residents on their way to or from PAK’nSAVE.
But he initially made some fundamental errors. Firstly, his margins were too big, thus making the prices too high.
Fresh fish
And, secondly, the fresh fish area at the back of the store was causing a fishy smell to pervade the store which actually hit customers as they entered.
But everyone has to start somewhere and a visit to one of his latest stores in Dominion Road in Auckland’s Mt Eden on the corner of Milton Road will show that Beuvink, his partner Chris Moore, and his colleagues have come a long way since the first Nosh opened.
His mission statement is “to provide the best quality products at the best prices and with a real emphasis on quality”.
On its website, Nosh proclaims ‘At Nosh we are passionate about great food. Our goal is to bring you the best local and international produce at the best price. But that alone is not enough!
‘Shopping at Nosh is like no other food shopping. Fantastic shop atmosphere, superior in store service from qualified professionals,convenient shop locations and plenty of parking ensures we are like no other.
‘We excel at having a wide array of products, the best on offer, from countries as far afield as Macedonia and Brazil. We also have the finest from Bluff, Nelson, Hawke’s Bay and a myriad of other great New Zealand areas to tempt you in store.
‘Of course we have cheeses, breads, flowers, coffee, chocolates and the like. But what makes us different is our fabulous range of fresh products including our awardwinning butchery, our fresh seafood area and our superb seasonal fruit and vegetable department making us the complete location for anyone who demands great food.’
It all sounds tempting, but is it a sprat to catch a mackerel?
No, to be honest, what it claims is what you see and what you see is what you get. There is a different range of shelf stable product to what’s generally available in the supermarkets.
The produce is top quality, the meat is something really different and the deli and fish serveovers are also worth seeing.
NZ and world brands
New Zealand brands you will not necessarily see in your local supermarket sit cheek by jowl with brands from overseas like the Tiptree preserves from Britain which are premium, but are good.
There’s a range of New Zealand honey not to be found in supermarkets, confectionery is different, as are many of the other categories.
There are also fresh flowers and if you have time for coffee, the Black Rock Café is there for you to rest a while and take the weight off.
When I asked Beuvink what changes he and his team had made as a result of the learnings gained from the Glen Innes store he said the first big change had been owning all the different store departments rather than franchising them off to different people.
“Our second big learning was that everyone is price competitive and you have to be competitive with all markets, no matter who you are,” he said. “Glen Innes is an extremely competitive food environment right through from The Mad Butcher and PAK’nSAVE to the local fruit and vegetable and fish guys.
“We have had to compete on the same price platform as the rest of them. That has made us incredibly strong. If you come from a grocery background it makes you more able to develop the environment you are in.
“No matter what suburb you put your store in, you have to have the best offer you can – the best product at the best price. For example, it is not just meat we are offering, it is the best eye fillet or it could be rump.”
Future strategy
Turning to his strategy for the future, Beuvink said he thought they would like to keep opening stores.
“Where we have, there is a gap in the market. It could be small and rural or big and metro. We have had a lot of positive responses. There is a lot of food culture in the countryside – people still want quality, even in the countryside.” Shortly after opening the Mt Eden metro store in Auckland’s Dominion Road, Beuvink and his team opened a rural store in Matakana.
“In Matakana we are trying to open a store how it used to be compared to what it is today. We are trying to have a business which serves people in the Rodney district.
1“Every food establishment is built around the surrounding population and we are absolutely in the space. I want people to buy their fresh food as frequently as possible and to eat it as soon as possible.
“We vacuum pack a lot of our meat and you don’t have to freeze it. People should not have to go home and freeze everything down.” One of the key factors, he said, in the success of his five stores was the quality of the staff through the store.
The difference
What does Nosh bring to the mix of supermarkets/food stores in Auckland that no other operator is providing?
“I think it is first and foremost the culture of the staff, their energy and their passion,” Beuvink continued. “That is fundamentally the difference. It is about the staff that brings it to life and makes it work.
“I am sure if I sat down with any Foodstuffs owner/operator they will say they have to be passionate about what they do. They have gone through the system. It is the passion and dedication to getting it right which makes the difference.
How did Clinton Beuvinck get into the business?
He did a BComm degree at university “which has proved to be pretty useful for practical reasons”. Leaving university in the early 80s, he found there were no jobs as there had been a recession. But he eventually got a job merchandising for Pepsi, moving on to become a rep.
“I was doing merchandising and displays and learned more in that six months than my four years at university. I was tertiary qualified but started out at the ground level of the food industry.
“I was not as clue-less as a lot of my colleagues.”
He then moved to Lever Brothers and worked for Lever-Rexona before moving to Carter Holt Harvey Tissue, Sealord and Mars Incorporated where he looked after the Pet Care Division for New Zealand and went over to Australia to work, merging retail channels for confectionery.
“In that capacity I got to explore the world and see what was going on in non-traditional grocery and that gave me a lot of inspiration for what we are doing.”
Saying that in Nosh he was very customer focused, Beuvink says “you have to be in touch with your consumers”.
He said all emails sent to the retailer through its website www. noshgourmet.co.nz he answered personally.
“It gives me an insight into what people like and dislike. I have had some fabulous emails and some not so complimentary.”
Their job, he said, was to sell volume.
Cost structures
“We need to get cost structures that allow us to pass on savings to our consumers. What we are trying to do is to redefine how people see the specialist grocery market.
“Our job is to help suppliers to get traction. It is actually the smaller suppliers who feel the only road to market for them is supermarkets and, in many cases, it is the road to ruin.
“They have to invest in plant, machinery, warehouses, appliance costs, barcodes and scanning to meet the quality for the food groups. But then it doesn’t sell and they have to close down and they lose their shirts.
“The more stores like ours that are put up, the more the smaller suppliers can sell their products.”
