Retail Trevor Mottram
‘A treasure trove of all
things kitchenware’ Trevor Mottram has been a mainstay of the Kent kitchenware scene for almost 50 years. Clare Turner chats to joint managing directors Sarah and Alan Wood Trevor Mottram was founded in 1975 in the Kent town of Tunbridge Wells. The shop - which bills itself as ‘‘a treasure trove of all things kitchenware’’ - is in a Georgian fivestorey premises on The Pantiles. This is an elegant tree-flanked colonnaded walkway, which was recently ranked as one of the best places for independent shops in the UK, according to research commissioned by American Express Shop Small. The business is owned by husband-and-wife team Alan and
Sarah Wood, who are joint managing directors. Sarah joined in 1998 and Alan followed in 2000. “Trevor Mottram was my uncle,” Sarah explains, “and he wanted to retire. We had dinner with him one night, got drunk, and bought a shop!” Back then, Sarah was a recruitment consultant and Alan was a finance director, “But I knew how to deal with customers because I previously had a Saturday job in retail,” she says, “and I understood cookware as my parents ran restaurants and
What sells well?
Scanpan is the shop’s biggest range and biggest seller. They also stock Dexam Supreme, some Kuhn Rikon and Iittala, and Eva Solo. Then there’s copper with De Buyer frypans and Ruffoni. 14 KITCHENWARE INTERNATIONAL
pubs; I was a silver service waitress cooking at tables in my teens”. Over the past decade, the business has won several accolades, including four CHA (Cookshop & Housewares) Retailer of the Year Awards: CHA was formerly a specialist division of Bira (British Independent Retailers Association). So what does Sarah believe sets Trevor Mottram apart from other kitchenware stores? “Our USP is our sheer volume of stock and choice. Our range is vast. We’ve got approaching 13,000 SKUs over 1,100sq ft of retail space. “And we’re not just good-betterbest. We’re good-better, betterbetter, and best-best. Because we’re [in a] tertiary [location] - we’re not in the high street - we have to be a one-stop-shop with a full serious offering of batterie de cuisine. “We can’t play at it. So we’ll never be the shop that has four garlic crushers or six colanders,
for example. We have 18 and 26 respectively, in different sizes, colours and materials.” Key product categories are cookware, knives, bakeware, and tools and gadgets. For cookware, “Scanpan is our biggest range and biggest seller. We also do Dexam Supreme, some Kuhn Rikon and Iittala, and a little bit of Eva Solo. Then there’s copper; we stock De Buyer frypans and Ruffoni.” For knives, core brands are Wusthof, Robert Welch, Global, Katana Saya, Lion Sabatier from Haus, Victorinox, Forest and Forge from Dexam, and Kai Shun. Bakeware comes from Captivate Brands, Silverwood, Dexam, Circulon, and Nordic Ware, while tools & gadgets names include Dreamfarm, Staub, Zwilling and Rösle. Much of the merchandise hails from European countries, particularly Italy and France, and