Moira Dean’s Premier DUSA store in Dundee claimed both the Soft Drinks and Sustainability top prizes at the recent SLR Awards. Let’s find out why…
By Antony Begley
Running a busy convenience store is a difficult enough task at the best of times but when you’re running a store on a university campus that’s effectively deserted for big chunks of the year, life can get really tough. That’s the world that Moira Dean and her team at Premier Dundee University Students Association (DUSA) operate in but it’s a world where they positively thrive in, and that fact was recognised at the recent SLR Awards as the store picked up not one but two major awards.
Premier DUSA picked up both the Soft Drinks Retailer of the Year Award, sponsored by CCEP, and the Sustainability Retailer of the Year Award, sponsored by Business Energy Scotland.
“We were absolutely over the moon to win those awards,” says Moira. “We work so hard and we put so much into it that it’s just wonderful to be recognised by our peers and even just to be in that room at the Awards with all of these amazing retailers.”
Seasonal fluctuations
Before we get to those awards, however, it’s worth taking a look at the challenges Moira and her team face in running a campus store. “It’s tough, it really is,” explains Moira. “At certain times at the year like Fresher’s Week and after exams, the store is utterly packed, and I mean packed! Then during periods like now in the summertime, the campus is practically empty because most of the students have gone home. We still have some custom as the university staff obviously use the shop, so we have to stay open all year round, but it makes everything difficult in terms of stock levels, staffing levels and so on.
“The bottom line is that our weekly sales can triple or more in certain periods of the year, but we just need to plan for that. We’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years.”
And it gets even harder when the University forgets to let you know that 250 Italian students on Language School are turning up in the middle of summer out of the blue, as happened in the week that we spoke to Moira. “I couldn’t believe it,” she laughs. “We’re normally very quiet at this time of year so we stock and staff accordingly. Then 250 students turn up in one go and we’re scrabbling about trying to make sure they get what they need!”
Eco warrior
Overcoming all of these challenges and still managing to create a truly spectacular store into the bargain is entirely to the credit of Moira and her team. “I joined just about eight years ago,” says Moira, “and we always wanted to build a store that was brilliant, by any standards. We wanted a store that would look brilliant if it was sitting on the high street in Dundee, rather than on a campus.”
It’s fair to say that she has succeeded and in some style. Moira makes no secret of her pride in winning the Sustainability award – for the second year running – as she has no hesitation in referring to herself as “a bit of an eco-warrior”.
“Before I came to work here I’d spent a year in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey and that really opened my eyes to sustainability and what we’re doing to the planet,” she says. “After that I got into scuba diving and started doing reef clean-up dives in Egypt where we would basically take rubbish and plastic out of the sea. That’s when my interest in sustainability really took off.”
So when Moira rocked up in Dundee, driving the sustainability agenda was very much front of mind. “It wasn’t easy at the start,” she recalls. “Eight years ago sustainability wasn’t really much of a thing, and certainly not in convenience retailing. Premier DUSA is actually run as a not-for-profit as part of the wider University but even the University wasn’t particularly active on sustainability issues back then.”
How things have changed, however, and Moira can certainly claim to have led from that front, even if her natural modesty prevents her from admitting it.
She says: “It took a wee while to get everybody on board, but I kept plugging away and gradually the world moved on, attitudes moved on, and legislation moved on. Now we’re all absolutely committed and united on that front, not just in the store but across the University.”
In the store itself, Moira says that her entire team are “just as passionate” about sustainability as she is, and sustainability is now very much part of the University’s ethos as it progresses on its journey to net zero.
Doing better
If you boil it right down, Moira’s approach can be summed up quite succinctly. She explains: “Basically, we try to look at everything we do in the store – and I do mean everything – then ask ourselves if there’s a better way to do it. That’s right across food, drinks, clothing, stationery, you name it.”
That approach was evident to the judges on our various visits. From fully recyclable and recycled food packaging to an endless array of refillable products, from 100% recycled stationery to recycled and organic DUSA-branded hoodies and caps. Large chunks of the store’s range are also chosen on the “better option” principle and that’s across many categories from soft drinks to toiletries. No stone has been left unturned in the search for improvement.
There’s even one of those very rare DRS units in the store, a legacy of Moira being among the first in Scotland to get a reverse vending machine in preparation for the on-off arrival of DRS that never arrived.
“We got the machine early and decided to keep it, even when DRS got postponed again,” she says. “We offer a small incentive for the students which gives them money off future purchases and, to be fair, it gets used non-stop.”
Customer facing
Another element of Moira’s in-store strategy that impressed the judges was the vast array of customer-facing sustainability signage. Hardly a fixture is missing a little informative tidbit or a quick piece of advice letting customers know about the range available in the shop and how they can keep doing their bit for the planet.
That’s an element that’s typically missing from most convenience stores. When stores are legally obliged to recycle plastic, cardboard and food waste, it seems like a no-brainer to at least let your customers know that you do it.
“Students, as a rule, are pretty progressive on issues like sustainability, organic, veganism and vegetarianism,” she explains. “So they are receptive, but we feel a responsibility to take them along with us on our journey.”
Moira says a lot of people also ask her if choosing the “better option” has an impact on her profits, and she’s pretty clear on that issue: “To be honest, better options can often be more expensive but that’s a price we’re willing to pay for what we feel we are achieving – and we believe our customers understand that. It means some products are a little more expensive and it means sometimes we have to accept slightly smaller margins. But don’t get me wrong, this store performs really well commercially – really well – and I think we’re helping to prove that you can do the right thing and still run a very profitable store.”
Soft option
As well as winning the Sustainability Award, of course, Premier DUSA also picked up the Soft Drink Award. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that the judges felt that literally every aspect of the store’s soft drinks offering was utterly on point – and that’s in no small part down to the efforts, passion and drive of Moira’s colleague Kieran Hoskins.
“He’s a bit of a human dynamo,” laughs Moira. “And I don’t think he’ll mind me saying that he’s a bit OCD, as some of the best retailers are!”
That was certainly evident on our visits and Kieran’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the soft drinks category was mightily impressive. Sensing that he was well on top of his subject, our judges began peppering him with some really tricky questions, often around the minutiae of ranging, merchandising and NPD. Kieran had the answer to every question and explained in some detail the unique way he builds a planogram and maintains and updates it on a very, very regular basis.
There was also no question that the soft drinks fixtures across the store were beyond impressive. There was literally nothing out of place. Bear in mind too that the SLR Awards judging is unannounced, so the place wasn’t immaculate because he knew the judges were coming. The place was immaculate because the place is always immaculate.
“He’s some boy!” laughs Moira, and it’s hard to disagree.
Campus stars
It’s hard to visit Premier DUSA and not marvel at what Moira, Kieran and the team have achieved – and what they’re trying to do moving forwards. The students and staff of Dundee University should count themselves very lucky indeed to have a resource like this at the heart of their little community.
