16 minute read
Centra store profile
Actionpacked
Bobby O’Reilly, the owner of Centra Johnstown Road, Cabinteely and Centra Ballybrack, tells Julia O’Reilly about his eventful year
Bobby O’Reilly bought his first store in Cabinteely, Co. Dublin in 2011 and has since added Centra Ballybrack to his portfolio
Bobby O’Reilly has had a busy year. Between acquiring his second shop and completing two full store revamps amid a pandemic, it’s hard to believe he’s had a minute to catch his breath. And yet, when ShelfLife magazine caught up with the store owner, he made it clear that he’s not slowing down anytime soon.
The proud owner of two stores in the Dublin suburbs - Centra Johnstown Road and Centra Ballybrack - O’Reilly has been in the business since 2005, when he worked as an assistant manager at Centra Bellevue Road, Glenageary.
A place of his own
By 2011, he was looking for a place of his own, but without much luck. “There wasn’t a lot out there,” he says. “During the Celtic Tiger years, places were going for such crazy money.”
O’Reilly immediately started making improvements to the store: “Back then it was a single shop unit and an off-licence. I did a small revamp on it. A few years later, when the unit next-door became available we were able to knock the three units together to create this bigger, more open store.”
Once the Cabinteely store was running well, O’Reilly knew it was time to try something new. “I started to get the itch again, so I approached Musgrave about buying Centra Ballybrack.”
Untapped potential
The Ballybrack store had a lot of potential, which meant there was plenty of competition for it. Still, O’Reilly had a clear vision: “I wanted to do a full revamp, enhance the core range, put in our special offers, and fill the shop with fresh food and a brand-new deli. I also knew I could improve the off-licence offering with a mix of budget and premium alcohol.”
In April of this year, that dream became reality when O’Reilly closed the doors for three whole days to carry out a complete store revamp. “We closed at 9pm on Saturday night, and worked through the night and all day Sunday. Between the builders, our store manager and regional manager, we had a lot of great people working on the revamp. We were lucky everything worked out so well.”
Sales boost
After putting in the hard work, they got to enjoy the rewards: “Customer feedback has been phenomenal. As well as seeing a significant sales boost since renovating, we’ve loved seeing the response from customers. It’s been out of this world.”
Hindsight is a gift, one that owners of multiple stores can often make use of. That previous July, it was Johnstown Road’s turn to get made over. However that time, the doors remained open, and the job continued for six weeks. “It should have taken three and a half weeks. But between social distancing and night work, it went on longer than we’d hoped. We learned a lot from the experience.
For Ballybrack, we decided it would be easier to take the hit on sales for three days and get 90% of the work done. We definitely made the right decision.”
Having the two sites has brought several other advantages too, says O’Reilly: “It makes a lot of things easier. The added buying power has made a real difference, as well as having a backup of staff. Yes, there’s more stress in a way, but you need a challenge to get yourself up in the morning and turning this store around has been a great challenge.”
Since the revamp of both sites, O’Reilly says sales have been up over 50% year-on-year. He’s seen a significant lift in off-licence sales thanks to their adapted selection. “People are looking for a treat. We had a lot of new customers coming in. The spend is definitely there. They’re looking towards premium wines, gins and whiskeys. We can barely keep our premium whiskey cabinet full most days!”
Team effort
After years in the business, O’Reilly knows a thing or two about getting customers in the door. “I always say to get as many fresh deliveries as you can. If you walk into a shop and there’s not a lot of stock on the shelves and there’s no big displays, you probably won’t walk back in. We lean heavily into promotions in our stores. We’re massive on Facebook and we recently started promoting deals on Instagram too. Still, you can’t sell without staff. They’ll make your business for you.”
O’Reilly was not only able to retain all the existing staff at Ballybrack when he took over, but the kickback from the revamp allowed them to further expand the team. “It worked out really well. We didn’t have to go through extensive retraining or hiring processes, and got to retain the friendly atmosphere that the shop already had.
“All the staff are local; they know 90% of customers who come in. I’ve been so impressed by how they engage with our customers. They’re friendly, they know people’s names, they offer to bring groceries out to cars. Seeing a friendly face makes a world of difference to customers, and I’m so proud of the atmosphere they create.”
Musgrave support
Throughout both revamps, the team at Musgrave were there every step of the way offering advice and support to O’Reilly and his team. “They were just unreal. I told them what I wanted, and they came back with so many great ideas. The Musgrave team encouraged me to really embrace a fresh, new, up-to-date look for the shops.
They offered that same level of support when it came to Covid-19 too, he says. “It gave us a great peace of mind. At any point when we were unsure of what step to take, we’d ring someone in HR and straightaway we’d be told the correct protocol to follow. We were also well stocked throughout which was exceptional since so many shops had empty shelves.
“We’ve come out of this with a stronger relationship with Musgrave. It’s times like these that you really appreciate being part of a bigger entity. If I just had Bobby’s shop on Johnson Road, it would have been me facing that alone. But Musgrave will always have your back, they’ll always help you and they’ll never let you fail.”
As for what the future holds for O’Reilly, he says he’s looking to expand further and is currently eyeing up prospective stores. Until then, “we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing.” So far so good. ■
Centra Ballybrack, which was revamped in April 2021
An industry in crisis
T h e I r i s h f o o d a n d d r i n k s e c t o r i s s t r u g g l i n g w i t h r i s i n g i n f l a t i o n a n d s e v e r e s t a f f s h o r t a g e s . T h e i n d u s t r y i s c r y i n g o u t f o r a l o n g t e r m s o l u t i o n t o t r a d i n g u n d e r t h e N o r t h e r n I r e l a n d P r o t o c o l a n d a n e n d t o i s s u e s b r o u g h t a b o u t b y B r e x i t a n d e x a c e r b a t e d b y C o v i d . F i o n n u a l a C a r o l a n r e p o r t s
From the moment Brexit came into being, it was evident that it would cause major disruption to business across Europe but especially between the UK and Ireland. The Northern Ireland Protocol was created as a way to prevent a hard border between the north and south of Ireland while protecting the Good Friday Agreement.
To allow businesses time to adjust to the new trading arrangements that needed to be brought about for the Northern Ireland Protocol to work, a grace period post-Brexit was given to businesses to allow goods to move freely across the Irish sea. This was finally due to finish on 30 September, but at the time of writing, had just been indefinitely extended again due to a failure to find a workable solution to trade between the UK and the EU without creating a hard border. According to the UK’s Brexit minister David Frost, the grace period has been extended “to provide space for potential further discussions (with the EU) and give certainty and stability to businesses while any such discussions proceed”.
Under the protocol, it was agreed that Northern Ireland would continue to be part of the single market and follow EU rules on product standards to prevent checks along the border. Checks would instead take place on goods entering Northern Ireland from England, Scotland or Wales.
Once the grace period is up, agricultural and certain other products imported into Britain will become subject to pre-notification requirements. From 1 January 2022, exports will require both EU and UK safety and security declarations, while from March 2022, border checks will commence on live animals and certain plants and plant products.
UK and Irish retailers are warning their governments that if a workable solution is not found, the inevitable result will be price hikes for consumers and also shortages of product across the sector. Retailers in Ireland are already dealing with massive inflation in the prices of raw materials and a dire shortage of workers so any more obstacles to trade could be the final nail in the coffin for any businesses relying on UK trade.
Ibec’s Food Drink Ireland (FDI) director Paul Kelly says “a whole range of commodity increases, labour shortages and transport difficulties” are “playing into a difficult environment for companies”
Inflation already an issue
Inflationary pressures on the industry have been highlighted in a recent survey by Ibec’s Food Drink Ireland (FDI) of its members in July.
According to the survey, the majority of food and drink companies experienced substantial increases across a range of inputs over the last 12 months including raw materials, transport, shipping and insurance. FDI director Paul Kelly said respondents expected a continuation of inflationary trends in the months ahead and that this would impact on margins and competitiveness in export markets. “I think what you have at the moment is in addition to a whole range of commodity increases, you’ve got labour shortages and transport difficulties, you’ve got a lot of shifting demand coming about as we come out of the Covid pandemic so all these factors are playing into a difficult environment for companies,” says Kelly.
Last month, retailers representing 75% of Northern Ireland’s grocery market wrote to David Frost and to European Commission vice president Marcos Sefcovic urging action before the current grace period is up.
Marks & Spencer chairman Archie Norman has said frankly that if no solution is found, consumers will be subjected to higher prices. “There is no other outcome for consumers in Northern Ireland than higher prices,” he wrote in a letter to Frost.
And according to a survey conducted by Grant Thornton, almost four in 10 Irish businesses are reporting delays to their supply chain as a consequence of Brexit, triggering concern that lead times will deteriorate further once the Protocol comes into being.
“It is likely going to get worse in the next 12 months, as the UK has been employing a light touch up to now,” says Jarlath O’Keefe, Grant Thornton Ireland’s head of indirect taxes.
Extension to grace period
Before the UK announced the current extension to the grace period, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar had said he was open to an extension
On Friday, 3 September 2021, George Wright, commercial director of M&S Food, wrote to EU-based suppliers, outlining a “proposed solution” to post-Brexit checks for a “digitally-enabled Facilitated Movement Scheme”
beyond September in order to find a workable solution to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“I certainly wouldn’t have any objection to the grace period being extended. But the difficulty with that, of course, is it doesn’t solve the underlying issues or the underlying difficulties. It just puts things off,” he said.
“It would be preferable to come to an agreement. But obviously if more time is needed to find time to make that agreement or ratify any agreements that might happen, I think that that would be reasonable to do so. We don’t object to that but it’s not the solution.”
FDI director Paul Kelly says that grace periods are there to allow businesses and others including the regulatory authority to adapt to the whole idea behind the measures. “Northern Ireland will be in the unique position of being within the single market as well as being part of the UK market so a lot of the measures that are being implemented in terms of the border controls and so on are ultimately about securing the integrity of the single market, so from that perspective you know that extension or grace periods probably make sense as part of the pathway to find an amicable solution for all these things. We do need that long term solution to be put in place though.”
Staff shortages
The double whammy of Covid and Brexit have presented other issues and one of the most documented is the shortage of staff across the services, retail and hospitality industries. Richard Walker, managing director of supermarket chain Iceland has warned that the Brexit-linked supply chain crisis could “cancel Christmas”. He said that the company is suffering shortages of food and drink products because of a lack of lorry drivers and that this “is impacting the food supply chain on a daily basis”. There are reports of a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers which is leading to empty supermarket shelves in both Northern Ireland and England at present.
Aside from the retail industry, the hospitality industry is also suffering from staff shortages. McDonald’s in the UK is struggling to keep all of its products on the menu, especially its popular milkshakes after being hit by severe lorry driver shortages and Nando’s has been forced to temporarily close over 40 of its restaurants in the UK due to a lack of staff.
Food manufacturers have become so desperate that they are asking the government to recruit prisoners to solve the labour crisis. The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers in the UK, which represents butchers, abattoirs and processors, said it was due to speak to the Ministry of Justice to explore how its members could recruit more current inmates and ex-offenders to staff its plants because they were experiencing chronic levels of staff shortages.
The shortages are due to a number of factors including workers needing to selfisolate for Covid, worker displacement and immigration and unemployment payments such as the PUP here in Ireland which is seen as a deterrent to lower paid work.
Brexit adjustment Fund
While all this disruption is ongoing, FDI has called for a range of measures to offset these impacts including funding from the Brexit Adjustment Reserve, and a renewed focus across government on reducing the cost of doing business in Ireland.
Paul Kelly tells ShelfLife: “There is a €5 billion fund which was decided upon in summer last year by the overall budget processing team in the EU and it was very clearly identified at that stage for the most affected countries and as you can imagine Ireland is the most affected country by Brexit and we would argue that we are the most affected large sector as well in terms of food and drink,” he explains. “The calculations show that Ireland is going to receive a little over a billion euros from that fund so we will be the largest recipient of it. They are still working through how that money will be used here in Ireland.”
“Brexit has added a lot of additional costs associated with getting product from Ireland to the UK,” Kelly continues. “There’s border controls, there’s export certificates, there’s a lot of additional administration, there’s delays in products, there’s less flexibility in terms of responding to orders from a time perspective, there’s a need to build up stock in the GB marketplace so all of these things add a lot of cost and therefore have an impact on your competitiveness so what we’re looking for is monetary measures that can offset that so that would include accountable investment schemes through the likes of Enterprise Ireland to be used to support additional automation and other enabling technology measures in companies.”
Kelly also thinks that part of the fund could be spent on supporting trade development and trade promotion and export credit insurance schemes that would significantly lessen the risk for companies as they begin to export to new markets.
Not willing to change
While the European Commission are very clear that they are willing to look at flexibilities within the protocol, they are not willing to reopen the negotiations on the protocol again. It is vital that the UK and EU use this extension period to find more workable solutions for businesses caught in the crossfire.
George Wright, commercial director of M&S Food, sent a letter to its suppliers on Friday, 3 September about the impact and challenges of Brexit-related compliance and regulatory enforcement on EU suppliers importing into the UK.
As a solution, M&S is proposing the creation of a “digitally-enabled Facilitated Movement Scheme that still meets all of the EU standards, but with a common sense, practical and modern efficient approach to achieving them that everyone can work with, EU and GB businesses alike”. The goal of such a scheme would be to “simplify the documentation burden, for both UK and EU businesses, whilst still demonstrating standards are being met”,
This letter just illustrates how retailers are feeling the need to take matters into their own hands as politicians have not yet managed to navigate any viable solutions thus far. There is a lot riding on this extension period as the food and drink industry has little left in the tank after Covid and Brexit. There’s only so much disruption businesses can cope with and time is surely running out for some. n
