David’s Kitchen claimed the coveted Scottish Local Retailer of the Year Award last month, just rewards for a decade of blazing a trail in the convenience sector.
Perhaps surprisingly, David’s Kitchen has never before won the Scottish Local Retailer of the Year title, despite a decade of boldly ploughing a lone furrow and effectively creating a new category in convenience: food-to-go. This year, however, the judges were unanimous on the winner of the title and a quick walk around any of the business’s three stores in Glenrothes, Falkirk and Kirkcaldy will show you precisely why.
With the passage of time, it’s easy to forget just how leftfield the decision to launch a food-to-go-based convenience business seemed at the time when David Sands unveiled his new concept a decade ago.
Having just sold his chain of traditional convenience stores to the Co-operative Group, David could have been forgiven for taking the rest of his life off and spending his days fishing for salmon and going on skiing holidays.
But for anyone that knows the dyed-in-wool retailer, that was never likely to be the case. Always a progressive, ambitious and driven retailer, he had spent many years touring the globe visiting stores to see what he could see. When the time came and the Co-op deal was done, he finally had the opportunity to take a flyer on something entirely new: a food-to-go-led convenience business.
Good to go
His travels had convinced him that food-to-go was the way to go, that the market in Scotland was ready for a new world of eating on the go. It is difficult to overstate how leftfield this seemed at the time. A decade ago when the first David’s Kitchen officially opened in Glenrothes, food-to-go just wasn’t a thing in local retailing. Why would anybody want to buy hot food and filled baguettes from a convenience store?
Never one for being overly concerned with other people’s opinions and invariably described in the trade press as ‘canny,’ David ploughed on and, in long-term colleagues Keith Fernie and Diane Greenough, he had the perfect team to bring the ambitious dream to life.
“I remember standing in the store in 2014, the night before we opened, looking at about five metres of chiller thinking ‘how the hell are we going to fill all of this?’,” laughs Keith, Managing Director of David’s Kitchen. But fill it they did and, remarkably, the store started making money in very short order.
“Everybody thinks it took us years to make money but that’s not the case,” he explains. “Diane and I had worked with David for more years than we can remember, and we make a great team. Diane has one of those ‘can do’ approaches to life. If you ask her to take something on, she’ll just say ‘yeah, I can do that’ – and she invariably does. So we just rolled our sleeves up and, in fact, we started making money from period two. Glenrothes effectively made money instantly.”
As anyone who has ever tried to build a food-to-go element to their business will tell you, it takes time, patience and money. It requires consistently high standards, a committed team and a vision.
“It wasn’t easy at the start, I’ll be honest,” says Keith. “We had waste at the start, like everyone who does food-to-go has, but it wasn’t excessive. We knew that we had to keep the chillers and cabinets well stocked because customers don’t like buying from empty cabinets, so we knew we had to invest in waste to a certain extent. But it was never excessive.
“We were doing something different but we had the confidence that we were doing the right thing,” he says. “And you need that confidence, especially when times are tough – and that’s where Diane comes in again! She drove us forward and never lost the faith and that’s key when you’re building a new type of business.”
As well as building a food-to-go category, however, Keith and Diane were also well aware of the importance of the rest of the store. Customers could find everything they expected of a local convenience store but they could also find a whole lot else besides.
And, critically, the store has always maintained the highest of standards in terms of the basics: fit out standards, ranging, merchandising, cleanliness.
“We always try to keep the stores looking nice,” says Keith, modest as ever. If you listen to the judges at this year’s SLR Awards, however, the stores look a lot more than just ‘nice’. Stunning might be a more appropriate word.
Rapid growth
Meanwhile, back in 2014, the Glenrothes store was proving so successful that a second store was soon opened with Falkirk joining the portfolio the following year. While the store was a very different shape and in a very different location, the basic model stayed the same. Food-to-go at its heart, wrapped in a full convenience offer.
In 2019 a third store was opened in Kirkcaldy and, as we speak, a fourth is very much on its way to becoming reality.
“We’re currently working on a site in Bo’ness, preparing it for work to start this month,” says Keith. “We’re hoping to have it open and trading early in the new year.”
It’s a remarkable story and is proof of what can be achieved in a relatively short space of time by a team that are confident in their vision and prepared to do what it takes to make it a reality.
From a standing start to four stores in little over a decade is testament to the people behind the business. So, looking back, what has made the business so special and so successful?
“I’d say our success is down to vision, perseverance and a great team,” says Keith. “We believed in what we were doing, we stuck at it and built a team that was and remains committed to delivering our vision. We’re very much a family business, in every sense. David and his dad Lindsay own the business and Diane and I have focused on building a team that’s really based on family. Most of the people who were at the stores when they opened are still there and a lot of us are related to each other. That works for us because we all pull together and we all feel a responsibility to each other.
“My son Kyle manages Glenrothes and does a great job and I have to say that Stephen Graham who runs Kirkcaldy and Sasha Henderson who runs Falkirk also do outstanding jobs. But it’s wider than that. It’s the whole team that makes David’s Kitchen what it is. The senior team needs to lead from the front but we rely on literally everyone in the team to help us deliver the vision every day of the week – and they do, which is brilliant.”
Unexpected directions
While Keith and Diane have remained loyal to the vision they had on day one – a food-to-go led convenience offer – they have also remained open to new opportunities as they encountered them. Outside catering is a great example.
“The business was obviously built around in-store sales,” says Keith, “but you have to be alert to opportunities. For a long time we offered platters of sandwiches and things like that which local businesses might buy for their team or people bought for birthday parties or whatever. But one day we had a conversation with Scout Scotland who asked if we could cater for a major scouting event with 500 attendees! It was fairly daunting but, Diane being Diane, she just said ‘I can do that’ – and she did.
“After that experience we realised there was a major opportunity so we ran with it and Diane did an immense job of growing that side of the business. It can be a little seasonal but we’re basically doing large-scale outside catering most weeks now. This week, for example, we were catering for 250 and next week we have 110 booked.
“We still work with Scout Scotland but we also cater for local businesses, schools, colleges, outdoor centres, you name it.”
Shift work
The team in the production kitchen is so busy that the business now runs night shifts to meet the demand.
“The catering shift helps us prepare everything we need for the following day,” explains Keith. “Everything is prepared fresh in-store and we do a lot of volume both in the store and for outside catering so there’s a lot to be done each night.
“Food-to-go is hard in so many ways, but if you do it well and you get it right, you can build a great business.”
Having been with Nisa for most of its life, David’s Kitchen moved to Spar last year, a move that surprised a few industry observers.
“I’ve nothing but praise for Spar,” says Keith. “They’ve done what they said they would do, the deliveries come as they should, our sales are up and our margins are up. It’s all good.
“We’re not afraid of change. The trading environment has never been tougher than it is now, so you need to be smart and work hard to keep moving forward. You have to try new stuff because the day you stop trying new stuff is the day you start going backwards.”
