Specialist snacks retailer Julian Graves plans to build its JG Experience format to challenge Marks and Spencer’s Simply Food. Anne Bruce reports
Shutts says the company is not afraid of change. In fact it has already been through “quite an evolution” in the past year, he says, adding 20 new stores since The Grocer Top 50 was compiled in February.
Shutts reveals that turnover for the year to March 23 2004 is projected to be £33m, up from £18.5m last year.
Ashiny Audi TT sports car is stationed outside the Julian Graves headquarters in an industrial estate in the west Midlands. It belongs to the md, Nick Shutts, the man with his foot on the accelerator as the specialist snack chain continues rapid expansion.
Shutts wants to drive the company into the retailing fast lane, taking on Marks and Spencer’s Simply Food with the roll-out of a state-of-the-art JG Experience format. The company, ranked 40 in The Grocer Top 50 independents’ index, has two pilot JG Experience stores - the second opened in Kidderminster just last week. Two more are in the planning pipeline.
The high spec JG Experience format is divided into four zones representing the Caribbean, Hawaii, India and the East. The stores sport chrome and black fixtures and fittings instead of the green found at 202 Julian Graves stores.
At an average 700 sq ft, only a handful of Julian Graves’ existing stores will be suitable for conversion to the JG Experience, which is a 2,500 plus sq ft format. Shutts says that as the JG Experience develops he will consider expanding into deli and prepared meals as well as sandwiches and chilled drinks. In store bakery is also on the agenda.
“The Julian Graves brand is ready to sit on convenience foods of integrity such as organic free range eggs. We want to create theatre and drive footfall,” says Shutts.
With JG Experience Shutts is attempting to appeal to a younger customer, as well as the existing stores’ traditional customer - the “grey pound”. The company has a loyal base of shoppers who 60 years old and above as well as the younger “wealthy achievers” shopping for finger food and snacks.
And he plans to keep up this “hectic” and lucrative growth until there are 450 stores in the UK. He is also considering franchising the offer in parts of northern Europe.
The chain has come a long way since Nicholas Julian Shutts started out selling sultanas and a growing range of ingredients at market stalls in the Cotswolds nearly 20 years ago.
When sales began to take off he went into partnership with a friend Nigel Graves Morris. And when they opened their first shop in Brierley Hill, they put their middle names together to form a trading name.
Morris is still a member of the board and is operations director but the chain now operates from a 21,000 sq ft factory, rather than Shutts’ flat.
Looking ahead, Shutts plans to introduce a fuller non--food range to both formats - gadgets such as garlic crushers - drawing a firm line between Julian Graves and competitors such as health food chains.
Five years ago Shutts realised the company was at risk of running a collision course with health food shops such as Holland & Barrett.
That is when he introduced confectionery, which now forms about a fifth of the range in the existing Julian Graves’ format. Snacks make up another fifth, nuts another fifth and dried fruit a quarter.
New stores under the Julian Graves format will offer the standard range as well as new ideas on trial in the JG Experience, which will become the company’s preferred fascia, says Shutts.
And after a smooth run-in for the JG Experience, the plan is to drive the format full speed ahead into continental Europe.
Shutts says the company is not afraid of change. In fact it has already been through “quite an evolution” in the past year, he says, adding 20 new stores since The Grocer Top 50 was compiled in February.
Shutts reveals that turnover for the year to March 23 2004 is projected to be £33m, up from £18.5m last year.
Ashiny Audi TT sports car is stationed outside the Julian Graves headquarters in an industrial estate in the west Midlands. It belongs to the md, Nick Shutts, the man with his foot on the accelerator as the specialist snack chain continues rapid expansion.
Shutts wants to drive the company into the retailing fast lane, taking on Marks and Spencer’s Simply Food with the roll-out of a state-of-the-art JG Experience format. The company, ranked 40 in The Grocer Top 50 independents’ index, has two pilot JG Experience stores - the second opened in Kidderminster just last week. Two more are in the planning pipeline.
The high spec JG Experience format is divided into four zones representing the Caribbean, Hawaii, India and the East. The stores sport chrome and black fixtures and fittings instead of the green found at 202 Julian Graves stores.
At an average 700 sq ft, only a handful of Julian Graves’ existing stores will be suitable for conversion to the JG Experience, which is a 2,500 plus sq ft format. Shutts says that as the JG Experience develops he will consider expanding into deli and prepared meals as well as sandwiches and chilled drinks. In store bakery is also on the agenda.
“The Julian Graves brand is ready to sit on convenience foods of integrity such as organic free range eggs. We want to create theatre and drive footfall,” says Shutts.
With JG Experience Shutts is attempting to appeal to a younger customer, as well as the existing stores’ traditional customer - the “grey pound”. The company has a loyal base of shoppers who 60 years old and above as well as the younger “wealthy achievers” shopping for finger food and snacks.
And he plans to keep up this “hectic” and lucrative growth until there are 450 stores in the UK. He is also considering franchising the offer in parts of northern Europe.
The chain has come a long way since Nicholas Julian Shutts started out selling sultanas and a growing range of ingredients at market stalls in the Cotswolds nearly 20 years ago.
When sales began to take off he went into partnership with a friend Nigel Graves Morris. And when they opened their first shop in Brierley Hill, they put their middle names together to form a trading name.
Morris is still a member of the board and is operations director but the chain now operates from a 21,000 sq ft factory, rather than Shutts’ flat.
Looking ahead, Shutts plans to introduce a fuller non--food range to both formats - gadgets such as garlic crushers - drawing a firm line between Julian Graves and competitors such as health food chains.
Five years ago Shutts realised the company was at risk of running a collision course with health food shops such as Holland & Barrett.
That is when he introduced confectionery, which now forms about a fifth of the range in the existing Julian Graves’ format. Snacks make up another fifth, nuts another fifth and dried fruit a quarter.
New stores under the Julian Graves format will offer the standard range as well as new ideas on trial in the JG Experience, which will become the company’s preferred fascia, says Shutts.
And after a smooth run-in for the JG Experience, the plan is to drive the format full speed ahead into continental Europe.
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