Food for Thought

Whiteleys has played an historic part in British retailing history…new food retailer, Food Inc, is hoping that their first retail space located in the heart of Whiteleys, I hesitate to call it a store for reasons that will become clearer later, will add to this heritage and put them firmly on the retail map.

But first a bit about Whiteleys …

The story started back in 1845 when an ambitious 24 year old left the security of his home in Leeds, England to seek his fortune with the total of Ten Pounds.   

Napoleon referred several times to England being a nation of shopkeepers and William Whiteley wanted to join them. Spending more than six years learning the retail trade and with savings of £700 he opened his first shop in unfashionable Bayswater, London.

It was clearly a good retail formula; by 1875 he was a success. In a manner that Sam Walton would have approved buying up other shops in the area, cutting prices, offering a vast ranges of goods and services from clothes and kitchenware to even an estate agency.

No slouch on the marketing front either he invented a slogan 'everything from a pin to an elephant' which became as famous as his store.

In 1885 he achieved his ultimate dream - the most comprehensive department store of its time, with a staff of 6,000 people most living in company-owned male and female dormitories. They had to keep some 176 rules and worked 7am to 11pm, six days a week. Retail has never been for the faint hearted.

An early pioneer of vertical integration Whiteley also bought massive farmlands and erected food-processing factories to provide produce for the store and staff.

But life has a way of shattering the calmness of success as in 1897 the buildings were devastated in an enormous fire, and as befits a store of that magnitude, it is reassuring to know that this was one of the largest fires in London's history.

New architects were employed and a massive building constructed it was opened in 1911 by the Mayor of London and still stands today. The new improved Whiteleys department store was the pinnacle of retail luxury, including a theatre and golf-course on the roof. It clearly captured the imagination of the literary set as it appeared in many 20th-century novels. Eliza Dolittle is sent "to Whiteleys to be attired" in Pygmalion (My Fair Lady).

But one person was not at the opening. William Whiteley himself. He was murdered in his own store, in 1907 by a man insisting he was his illegitimate son, and demanding his inheritance.

Clearly the meeting did not go well.

Well sadly for the Whiteley family and as often happens in retail dynasties his sons were not the retailers their father had become and by 1927 it had been sold to Gordon Selfridge – He of Selfridges fame.

Whiteleys survived the bombing of London during the war intact. According to legend, Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe not to bomb Whiteleys as he wanted it as his headquarters once he'd invaded Britain.

The end of the Second World War changed many things for good. Shopping patterns changed, tastes changed but Bayswater stayed the same.

The West End of London became the new shopping area drawn by the success of Selfridges in Oxford Street amongst others, Whiteleys declined…slowly… and closed.

Well its difficult to keep a big department store down and in 1989, after extensive remodelling of the interior, Whiteleys was re-opened as a multi retailer shopping centre.

Well so much for the history back to the future…

Overall the shopping centre concept has never worked as a major retail destination and there have been a number of strategies to improve consumer appeal and this I feel this store concept, clearly as much a operating centre initiative  as a retailer led one, is part of another…

Food Inc is the latest addition to the Whiteleys retailers opening this week on the 28th May. It is different to the normal food retailer. It does not really have a shop front but is located in the common areas of the ground floor, it is not located all together but split up.  Bakery in one place, cheeses in another, as with wine, fish, grocery, fresh produce, meat, pasta. Right across the length of the store along the main corridor and all open plan. It’s a retailer that does not have any doors.  This layout is a big part of its point of difference.

This is great for the developer, that kind of space is impossible to rent out, good for this retailer as I imagine the rent is low but it is debatable if it is going to be good for the customer. It splits out the shopping mission into constituent parts and makes cross selling more complicated. It also makes staffing and staff costs more difficult to manage.

Food Inc. was created by Harvey Nichols Foodmarket and Restaurants founder Dominic Ford and his business partner Pat McDonald.

The location is not the only distinctive element about the proposition, they clearly see a big difference between people who run food retailers and people who run restaurants. Their approach is a ‘restaurant focus to food retail’. This manifests itself in several ways. Lots of the Food Inc suppliers are restaurant suppliers as Ford and McDonald believe as they’re driven by chefs, they stock products that chefs want to buy, that taste good and are good to cook with.

This philosophy is applied to other categories. The wine shop is merchandised like a wine list with a sommelier to help guide you through making the best choice.

All the food will be run by a head chef, not a retail manager. Staff working behind counters will wear chef like gear and staff have been recruited from restaurant backgrounds. Staff spent two week prior to opening tasting the food, so that they can talk to customers knowledgably. It has a staff of around 50.

The overriding philosophy of Food Inc is quality and the founders mission is to put this at heart of everything they do. They want to sell the best. This is a premium offering and is reflected in the selection of brands that have been chosen in the categories, the producers of own label and the obvious quality of the meat, fish and fresh produce, which is of an excellent standard. Challenging for a single site retailer, on opening day there were some 250 own label products across the product range, this had paid off as they are exquisitely packaged and gives a unifying effect across the units.

Visual merchandising is excellent. Clean, simple, uncluttered, limited POS letting the products do the talking. Stylish yet functional fixtures.

This does not come cheap. Prices are expensive. It is not a place to do your weekly shopping, especially when you consider the competitive set in the immediate area. M&S foodstore in the complex, Tesco across the road and a new Waitrose a little up the street that opened yesterday.

As the founders say, this is the first of a kind in UK retailing and I think it is a valid claim. It's well worth taking a close look at but I wonder who the customers will be and if it will endure as long as Whiteleys.

David

David Roth

Comments

[Mrs Gillian Davidson]

It is really great to read comments by people in Europe ( UK especially) and North America. But no-one seems to have included any coments from Australia.

Australians are getting fairly jaded about "dealer outlets" and there are many. I live in Melbourne, Victoria. Many of these outlets sell items which are certainly below retail price, but they are also far below quality expected.

The experience of shoppping in a supermarket, is becoming someting undesirable. Many busy people now prefer to shop on line for supermarket items. No temptation, just the shopping list you have, which most likely includes brands your mother or grandmother bought. We depend on quality these days and are prepared to a little bit more for that.

On the other hand, we tend to gravitate towards the friendly local butcher for meat, and the friendly local greengrocer, for vegetables, - or better still the Farmers Markets. Greengroceries in supermarkets have become unfriendly, with very high prices for seasonal veges, and extremely high prices for meat. If you are a re siingle person, it has become impossible to buy a one only portionof meat in a supermarket. Also things like, liver, kidneys, tripe, and other offal, is siply not available in major supermarkets.

The major portion of family income rise has not really gone on in the rise of mortgage repayments, it has occurred in the cost of food.

Retailers need to address the rise in single family homes, and market accordingly.