Baking up a storm in Coalisland

Newell Stores Coalisland took home Bakery of the Year and highly commended in the Community Store of the Year category at the 2018 Neighbourhood Retailer Awards. We find out more from managing director Colin Conway.

The sister store to Newell Stores Dungannon, the Coalisland site has been trading in the centre of the town since 2013. This year, the esteemed Mid Ulster store was named the number one bakery in Northern Ireland at the Neighbourhood Retailer Awards.

Described as a “treat for all the senses” by the judges for the awards, Newell Stores Coalisland’s was praised for its helpful and knowledgeable staff.

With a range of traditional Irish breads, artisan breads, cakes, pastries, and much more on offer, managing director of Newell Stores, Colin Conway believes that product innovation is the key to succeeding in the bakery category.

“We started to think outside of the box when it came to the traditional bakery,” says Colin. “By looking at the all day offer and upping the treats at the weekend we saw considerable growth in this area of the store.”

Reporting strong customer demand for more indulgent options, Newell Stores Coalisland stock a varied selection of singular treats that can be bought individually or mixed and matched with other bakery items.

“Customers don’t always want a large pack of buns and this way they can pick up what they need. These sorts of items are great when it comes to the weekend. We also find that they’re particularly popular on a Monday when you aren’t quite ready to give up your Saturday/Sunday treat!”

Alongside the confectionary range, Colin believes the hero bakery item for this Coalisland store is the humble baguette.

“It’s very hard to move away from them because they work with everything,” he says. “People are starting to look at the baguette as a way of branching out. You can now get sourdough baguettes and your more unusual ranges like cranberry and walnut that work really well.

“I find that in Ireland we have such a strong association with bread that you’re constantly competing with the everyday staples like soda bread, potato bread, and pancakes. To get new breads off the line they have to be a wee bit off the cuff.  There’s a lot of trialling and testing.”

Colin believes an element of the store’s bakery success can be attributed to how it enriches Newell Store Coalisland’s deli by being able to provide customers with a range of bread products to accompany their food-to-go.

“At this time of year our soups are really popular and customers are able to pick the bread they want to go with it, or select the type of baguette they prefer for their sandwich. We look at our bakery as an accompaniment to what we already have rather than seeing it as its own individual section. This way of thinking has been very successful for us.”

Like the bakery, Newell Coalisland’s deli is an exceedingly important aspect of the store. With an extensive hot and cold offering, everything is freshly cooked on site each day.

“We have something for everybody. When you walk through the door, no matter what time of the year, or what your appetite might be, you will always find something in the hot or cold element of the deli,” says Colin.

However, he also notes that tastes vary across each store.

“It’s funny how in Northern Ireland you can travel five miles between two stores and customers treat and react to things differently,” says Colin. “So as much as you might have an agenda that is designed for the company you have to have the flexibility that it will change from store to store from time to time.”

One thing that is consistent at both sites, however, is the commitment to their local communities. With a town centre presence, the Coalisland store hosts a 10k race with the local running club each summer. Hailed as a Mid Ulster community event, the annual race has been running for the last two years in June with plans to build on the success of the event year-on-year.

The idea behind it, Colin tells Neighbourhood Retailer, is to bring the whole community together.

“Community is something we would have been very strong on in Dungannon, but it is something the Coalisland store has really taken to a new level. Around this time of year they would have a visit from Santa Claus, colouring competitions, a brass band playing in the store, and choirs from the local primary schools.

“All of these things help to create a good buzz in the shop but they also show that bit of community spirit that is sometimes forgotten about.”

Celebrating 30 years of business in October 2018, family-owned Newell Stores are especially familiar with what it takes to succeed in the Dungannon area.

To mark the third decade of Newells, the stores hosted a programme of community focused events throughout the year aimed at rewarding their shoppers with prizes and some extra in-store entertainment. By hosting ‘Deal or No Deal’ style games, the stores were able to interact and engage with their customers.

“Your turnover and your job creation comes from the people around you and it’s important to realise that your business is primarily there because of the support of your customers. It’s important to give back to the community in which you live. You should always be trying to make that better – even if it’s not for yourself, but for future generations,” says Colin.

The team behind Newell Stores also put a lot of emphasis on backing local suppliers – both in their immediate area as well as further afield in Northern Ireland.

The retailer’s relationship with both Nisa and Food Force Ireland (FFI) enables them to support more local brands throughout the region.

“The connection to FFI and Nisa, under the Co-op brand, works very well for us because we have such independence. In the community our name is something that stands out to everybody because they trust the brand.

One supplier, SD Salads, has been a part of the Newell Stores’ journey since 1989. A family business also, it has now been passed onto the next generation.

As a second generation owner himself, (Colin is joined by his four siblings in the business, alongside his mother and father Eugene and Marianne Conway who founded the Dungannon store 30 years previously), this is something that is especially gratifying to this managing director.

“It’s amazing to see,” says Colin. “This is a family business coming off the back of something we started, who have worked hard, and are now in a position to pass the business onto the next generation. It’s great to be able to do that.”

While 30 years may have passed, Newell Stores are planning to enter their third decade in business with the same vigour and determination to keep up with customer demand. A new Post Office and off licence have already opened at the Dungannon site with plans to bring the same facilities to Coalisland, along with additional car parking.

“When we started in 1988 the market was very different from what it is today. We’ve focused on fresh and maintained our core values of quality, service, and value as we have gone along. These are all areas that we continue to focus on and so far it has been very successful for us,” Colin concludes.