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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW SPAR AUSTRALIA RECORDS HEALTHY GROWTH, ANNOUNCES NEW WAREHOUSE Managing Director for SPAR Australia Lou Jardin spoke to Retail World in an exclusive interview about how the business has fared in the market during the pandemic, the grocery market and competition, and plans for growth. By Lorna Gloria. What changes are you seeing in the retail supply and consumer space? A lot has happened in the last 12 months. I was tapped into the international conference over the last two-three days, and it’s quite confronting when you hear the stories about what’s happening in some of the European countries, when you see images of big cities with empty streets and nobody around, and certainly what they’ve gone through. In Australia we’ve been very, very fortunate when you compare what has happened. Apart from the first two months, we’ve been relatively comfortable. Prior to Covid, the formula with our retailers was starting to take hold. We were starting to see some good growth even prior to the pandemic. So, when it happened, we were in a really good position to ramp up quite substantially. Through the first two months of the Covid period, sales were up 50 per cent on the previous year. Volume had substantially gone through the roof. We didn’t miss a delivery day through it. We had restrictions in place for our retailers. We put a system in place where we could control the level of stock that they were all getting. And essentially, everybody got a fair shake of the stock that was available. I’m proud of the team, what they did, and what we put in place in those early days that got us through that initial period. After Easter, things settled down and then everybody was pretty much in the same boat. What shopper trends have come from the market in 2021 and how is SPAR addressing these? Our shoppers started shopping across the whole shop. We were starting to get a much fuller shop and get the basket across the store. To a large degree, that’s been able to hold. We’ve seen a bigger shopping basket, and consumers are using our type of stores more often than they have before because they liked what they saw. On the back of that, we were driving hard on in-store bakery and convenience foods. We were starting to do well in some of the other segments, such as health foods and so forth, and, because we set up a good base in those areas, we were able to get the flow-on effect across all those categories. It’s a combination of a good value offer and some of the new category segments that we’ve developed over a period that was starting to really cut through at that time. “Within the business, the focus is more to do with the skill level of our retailers. A lot of our retailers that have come into the segment are new, so we’ve got a real challenge around how we upskill them.” What are some of the key challenges that continue to impact retail? Within the business, the focus is more to do with the skill level of our retailers. A lot of our retailers that have come into the segment are new, so we’ve got a real challenge around how we upskill them to enable them to cope with the demands of what the consumers are looking for. We put in a lot of time and energy in terms of building the base around that, introducing new programs that assist the retailer in running their stores a lot better, and providing advice around the important things that drive their business and the things to look out for. We’re in a much better space now to be able to provide the level of advice that retailers are looking for, and the skill level of our team has certainly increased to manage that as well. With new customers coming in, we need to manage them better, and we can retain them because the offer is a lot more in line with what the consumer is expecting. How is SPAR performing in the market and what are its plans for growth? We’ve done very well in the marketplace. When I look at our numbers and compare them, I believe we’ve outperformed most of the other retailers that publish their numbers. All throughout the initial period of Covid and the ensuing months, to the point where we’re cycling Covid now, we’re very close to showing positive numbers. That’s very pleasing, and the momentum continues. We’re looking at the region of 20 per cent-plus versus two years ago, so you’re looking at a major step change in our business from where it is. Only yesterday, in the SPAR International group, they announced our sales result for the calendar year, and SPAR Australia showed a 16.8 per cent increase on the previous year, bearing in mind that Covid came in three-quarters of the way through it. The store count has remained similar, with stores going out and stores coming in. But the volume per store has certainly gone up. 8 RETAIL WORLD JUN, 2021