Henderson Foodservice, which launched the brand in 2015, has invested £250,000 to develop the new ‘My Barista Bar Rewards+’ app for users in Northern Ireland, that will digitise the brand’s loyalty scheme and streamline communications with users.

Alongside the app, the brand has also revamped its website, and launched a new online store, where shoppers can purchase branded products, reusable cups and merchandise which is produced in partnership with local Ballymena company, Ted & Stitch.

Keavy O’Mahony-Truesdale, Brand Manager at Barista Bar said they are responding to their customer demand and joining top coffee brands with their digitised approach.

“Barista Bar and the way we communicate with our customers has evolved over the years, led by their behaviour and preferences,” said Keavy.

“This digital approach not only modernises the brand’s presence but will enhance the overall user experience while reinvigorating our loyalty and rewards programme, improving customer engagement and satisfaction. We are thrilled to be able to offer this innovative and seamless experience to our valued consumers through the new ‘My Barista Bar Rewards+’ app.

“Barista Bar’s position in the local marketplace is very strong, and we have announced expansions into Scotland in recent months. Our products are available in 444 SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO branded sites in Northern Ireland, 49 Co-Op sites in the East of England, and we have 104 new sites agreed within SPAR Scotland stores, the roll out for which commences early this year.”

Henderson Foodservice has invested over £14m in the Barista Bar brand in the past nine years, establishing the product as the preferred choice for takeaway hot beverages to go in Northern Ireland, with over 12 million cups sold in 2023.

The all-new My Barista Bar Rewards+ app went live on Monday 15^th January and has been developed alongside local app developers, Sugar Rush Creative. It is available to download from App Store and Google Play.

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While the wholesale and retail company has been an early adopter of new tech, the arrival of Covid meant they had to pivot quickly and start pushing out new ways of doing things that had been in the pipeline.

Marking over 120 years in business, Henderson’s retain a deep sense of pride in being a family-run Northern Ireland business, headed by brothers Martin and Geoffrey Agnew.

‘STRONGEST BRAND’

As the number one convenience store and small supermarket brand in Northern Ireland, the Group is the biggest player in terms of store numbers, boasting some 500 stores. With a mix of company-owned and independent retailers, the SPAR brand is “by far the strongest brand in consumers’ eyes” says Sales and Marketing Director, Paddy Doody.

“We have brilliant examples of great stores in almost every town and village in Northern Ireland, we have a very strong spread of stores and our ethos is, and always will be, to reinvest in our businesses,” said Paddy.

Their independent retailers are the bulk of the Henderson Group business, while their company-owned stores make up approximately a fifth and collectively they reported a 10.9% increase on a like-for-like basis in their Christmas trading figures.

‘The SPAR brand is by far the strongest brand in consumers’ eyes’

While Paddy said they are “really pleased with that performance” he issued it with an air of caution, stressing that inflation has to be taken into consideration.

“Food inflation was reported to be as high as 14% for the month of December, so it’s not real volume growth. I will be honest, we are seeing a softening in our volumes, but a big increase in our turnover.”

It is those immediate, well-documented challenges that Henderson’s and so many others are facing.

CHALLENGING HEADWINDS

“The headwinds we are being confronted with – heat, light, electricity costs, wage costs, are all linked to the impact of inflation. The war in Ukraine, which has created both political and economic instability, all has an impact on consumer sentiment.

“So therefore, across the board, consumers are a little more anxious than we were seeing before, a bit more uncertain and therefore a bit more discerning in their spending.

“Those are the things that are concerning us as a business, that those headwinds are front and centre and that will be across every sector and every business.

“That’s not including the uncertainty the impact of Brexit and the Northern Ireland Protocol has been causing. The political landscape in Northern Ireland is deeply troubling as a business. Our views as a Group reflect those of the CBI, of which we’re a member, that clearly it needs to be sorted and we need an Executive back up and running.

“They need to get their differences sorted out and as a business, we are apolitical. We’re very clear that NI needs an Executive running, decisions made by the people of NI for the people of NI. But at the moment, it’s just not acceptable the current situation we’re in and have been in for many, many months.

“We’re hoping that a new focus on that by both the UK Government and the EU will yield some results here and allow us in Northern Ireland to go forward.”

‘INVESTING IN A STRONG SECTOR’

That being said, Paddy highlighted there are still many things to be positive about.

“We operate in a very strong sector – food and retail is a robust industry. While it’s not immune at all from economic downturn, we do operate in a sector where people have to buy food and eat.

“We do, however have to have an efficient business model and do have to continue to invest in the business. As a business we have done that in spades over the last number of years and continue to do so.

“We are planning big investments in 2023 and have a capital programme of over £60 million that we will invest in our company-owned stores and in partnership with our independent retailers.

“We are a successful, independent, family-run, family-owned business and we have an ethos and culture of continual reinvestment to drive the business; and that’s about partnering with our independent retailers, investing in their business, investing in new stores, investing in promotional and price activity to give better value to the shopper, and investing in our infrastructure.

“In the past five years we have invested around £40m at the site in Mallusk. We’ve built new warehouses, we acquired land to build a new warehouse back in 2017-2018 and new offices which were about a £3m spend in 2018.”

FOODSERVICE

While continuing to invest in both the wholesale and retail levels of the business, Paddy added they are continuing to focus on the food service side of the company as well.

“It operates on the whole island of Ireland and would have been hit very badly during covid lockdowns with bars and hotels closed, schools and restaurants closed, so their business dropped massively over that period,” he said.

“The good thing is that in 2022 our food service business has bounced back very, very strongly. We finished the year with a significant increase of 40% on 2021.

“Our NI business has recovered very well and our Republic of Ireland business is coming back very strongly. Though there are still a lot of challenges from a food service point of view, particularly with Brexit and supply chains and we have the other issues with the cost-of-living crisis and high inflation, wages costs etc.”

AWARD WINNERS

No stranger to winning awards, the Henderson Group enjoyed another strong year of performances in 2022. They saw their retailers collect a host of awards at the 2022 Neighbourhood Retailer Awards, most notably the hat-trick of awards taken home by brothers Jonathan and Terry McCullagh, including the Retailer of the Year title for their Omagh store, McCullagh’s SPAR Classic Service Station. The brothers also claimed the Forecourt of the Year category and Food to Go Store of the Year titles on the night.

Other winning stores last October included JC Stewart EUROSPAR Foodhall, Lynch’s EUROSPAR Skeoge, Creightons SPAR, Blacks Road and SPAR Maxol Service Station at Cherryvalley.

“Throughout the UK we have performed very strongly, for example we picked up 13 awards at the Retail Industry Awards. Not only does it include other symbol groups in the UK, but it also includes Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Morrisons and so on. For us to go between our company-owned stores and our independent stores and pick up that many awards was absolutely exceptional. Mulkerns EUROSPAR in Newry is a real award-winning store and picked up a host of awards last year too.

“Also at the Grocer Gold Awards, Henderson Retail won Independent Retail Chain of the Year again last year, which is the third time we’ve won it in five years.”

DEDICATED STAFF

While the last few years have brought new and unprecedented challenges for the country, Paddy was keen to sing the praises of all Henderson employees.

“During Covid, all our stores remained open, all our independent retailers’ stores were open, we had a warehouse distribution facility with drivers and pickers that never stopped. In fact, our business took a huge increase in business over that period and we have retained that level of business.

“We took a step increase in our business and I put that down to shoppers who hadn’t normally used our stores coming to us and they realised that SPAR and EUROSPAR stores and supermarkets have got better and are closer to home – locality is a value that shone through during those tough lockdown months. Shoppers saw the range of services, the fresh and locally sourced products, the local butcheries, the Barista Bar coffee offering and the year-round value on local products and big brands.

“I would definitely pay tribute to our retail teams and our warehouse and delivery teams who worked right throughout the pandemic, they are absolute heroes as far as I’m concerned in terms of what they did,” he said.

“From a charity perspective, our retailers are brilliant working with our chosen charities, which are Marie Curie for SPAR, Cancer Fund for Children for our larger format EUROSPAR and ViVOXTRA stores, Age NI with ViVO and our corporate charity partner for Henderson Group is Action Mental Health. Our ethos is to always engage with charities and raise funds to support their important work and services, and we have raised £1million for our charity partners in 2022.”

The pandemic ultimately changed the shopping habits of consumers, with many avoiding the larger stores and wanting to stay closer to home, and Paddy said this is a continued trend as they face new challenges, including the rising cost of groceries and utilities.

ENSURING VALUE

“Local shoppers are asking for more, we have invested a lot in market research and focus groups, asking shoppers what they want. What they want at the moment is value, it is that simple, they just want value.

“But value is not just about the price, it also includes your time, which is valuable. It’s quicker for you to go to your nearest SPAR or EUROSPAR than it is to go to an out-of-town multiple, so that value will be an element of convenience.

“It also comes down to your own personal ethos, you might want to support local businesses. A local shopper will say ‘I want to support someone I know so that the money is invested back into the facilities, so they continue to have a fantastic store, but also invested back into those local employees in their local neighbourhood’.

“Shoppers are looking for that all-round value, they want to go into the store and get in and get out fairly easily, it’s about parking, it’s trying to hit a number of shopping missions in one.

“The consumer mindset is quite complex and quite varied, people are quite different. We’ll try and categorise them as much as possible, but we are in an era of personalisation in many respects.

“We have a very strong SPAR brand representation throughout the range. You will see that that area of the business is growing faster than other areas. Shoppers are making the decision to look for value, to be savvy and maybe they are looking at a market-leading brand of an item and they are looking at our SPAR brand item and wondering if the first is really worth the extra 30-40 pence.

“We do recognise that some families are struggling, without a doubt, and that’s why we will continue to invest to bring that value to the doorsteps of our shoppers in local communities,” he added.

TO SEE THE FULL FEATURE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD RETAILER YEARBOOK, CLICK HERE

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The company, based in Mallusk won the Business Growth award and picked up highly commended for Food and Drink eCommerce Website of the Year.

The Irish eCommerce Awards were held at the weekend in Dublin, and are the only dedicated celebration of Irish e-tailers, software providers, agencies and entrepreneurs which recognises and rewards the organisations, teams and individuals who are helping shape the thriving internet retail industry across the island of Ireland.

In recent years, Henderson Foodservice has invested heavily in its digital transformation throughout 2020, working with specialist partners to develop a platform to meet the needs of the company’s broad spectrum of customers across Ireland. Henderson-foodservice.com is now one of the fastest, most intuitive and progressive websites in the foodservice industry, which the company will continue to develop throughout its 2023/24 strategy.

The company has experienced a growth of online sales by 99% so far for 2022 compared to 2021, with the new strategy allowing sales to expand threefold compared to the previous platform. The company has also grown their customer base by 87% in the past year, with 75% of those customers putting their orders through online.

Henderson Foodservice Director, Cathal Geoghegan commented: “Our team has worked tirelessly to overcome huge challenges in the past couple of years to bring our eCommerce proposition to life for our customers.

“We have used a multi-channel approach to acquire new customers as well as communicate more effectively with existing customers, and skilled up our sales reps to become web advocates to show how our efficient, user-friendly platform can create a more cohesive and efficient ordering platform for our customers and our internal teams.

“We are thrilled to pick up these awards against some stiff competition from online retail giants, and I’m incredibly proud of our team who have embraced the developments our company needs to bring solid growth and customer expansion, pivoting to meet an ever-changing marketplace.”

The Irish eCommerce Awards judges was made up of a panel of industry experts from across the UK and Ireland. A full list of winners can be found via ecommawards.ie.

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Speaking at the Full Steam Ahead conference with customers, staff and suppliers at Titanic Belfast last week, Managing Director Cathal Geoghegan acknowledged the company’s successes during the pandemic, the challenges in the wider industry, and its response to aide recovery alongside their customers and suppliers.

Mr Geoghegan announced the company made a turnover of £134.1m in 2021, a growth of 21% on 2020, when the dual challenges of Brexit and COVID hit Northern Ireland’s health, retail, education and hospitality sectors.

The conference was an opportunity for the company to not only reflect on the growth and innovations implemented in the past two years, but look to the future “full steam ahead”.

During the conference, Mark Stewart-Maunder, Commercial and Business Development Director gave an update on how the dual challenges of Brexit and COVID have affected the business, while also noting the good news stories, from the new Henderson Foodservice website incorporating a new Product Information Management system, which aides customers to navigate allergen and product information in compliance with Natasha’s Law.

In June 2021, the company revealed their new, state-of-the-art £16M warehouse facilities, and the conference was an opportunity for Philip Mehaffey, Head of Logistics, and Pat McGarry, Operations Director at Henderson Group to update staff on the successes of the new operation and the efficiencies it has brought the company at such a crucial time.

The conference ended with a session from Team Joe Barr, the cyclist turned motivational speaker, but not before local hospitality heads Tony O’Neill, David Maxwell and Colin Neill joined Henderson Foodservice Sales Director, Kiera Campbell on a panel to review the challenges and pivots throughout the past two years.

Cathal Geoghegan commented: “This was the first time in two years our staff, customers and suppliers were able to sit together in the one room for our annual conference and it was a day full of motivation and learning.

“We have weathered this storm thanks to the tenacity and innovation of our team, and it is now time to look forward and keep that success going into the future as we work alongside our customers as they reopen to a very new and different world than it was before March 2020.

“Since that time, we have had many achievements to celebrate, from the roll out and continued investment of our Barista Bar coffee business, to the integration of BD Foods and Foodco alongside our £16M warehouse completion. This continued investment through challenging times has positioned us well as we look to continued growth in the future.”

The evening Awards and Gala Ball hosted by Tim McGarry saw a number of staff recognised for their achievements in the past year, from sales to CSR and innovation to team and project awards, and the company’s fundraising total of £21,000 was split between  its charity partners, PIPs, NI Children’s Hospice and Jack & Jill Foundation, and presented on the night.

Cathal continued: “Our Executive Board had a tough job this year as our teams and individuals performed exceptionally throughout 2021. A majority of our team are still working remotely, so it is a testament to their dedication and professionalism that we have achieved such great things in the past year, working so cohesively while still physically apart.”

During the evening, staff and suppliers were treated to a three course banquet delivered by Executive Head Chef Garreth Wilson, while entertainment was enjoyed by Belfast Beo dancers and musicians, in-house band Rock Hoppers and Q Radio DJ, Ryan A.

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The company’s coffee brand, Barista Bar®, provided ‘keep me’ cups and free beverages to core volunteers in the East Antrim area.

The Eco Rangers group was formed during lockdown last October by retired paramedic Abe Agnew (71).  What started with only a smattering of people has now grown to be a 1,400 strong group including 170 junior eco warriors who carry out litter picking across the East Antrim region, including Larne, Carrickfergus, Islandmagee, Ballycarry, Gleno, Glynn and Carnlough.

The Eco Rangers collect more than 20,000 pieces of litter each week with the most common items being bottles, tin cans and fast food wrappers.

Since the start of the pandemic, discarded items such as old masks, wipes and tissues have also become prevalent. The group isn’t funded and relies on partnerships and in-kind support from local businesses as well as Mid and East Antrim Council. The team also fundraises to help continue their environmental work.

Barista Bar® Brand Manager, Keavy O’Mahony-Truesdale said: “We were hugely impressed and humbled by the invaluable work of the Larne Eco Rangers and were thrilled to be able to support them by donating Barista Bar ‘keep me’ cups and pre-loaded loyalty cards so that volunteers can avail of a well-earned hot beverage of their choice in in participating SPAR/EUROSPAR/ViVo  stores in the East Antrim area.

“As a brand we are conscious of the impact single use coffee cups have on the environment and we encourage the use of reusable cups.  We launched our reusable cups in 2019 and now there are nearly 80,000 in use across Northern Ireland. They are a key part of our brand message and our commitment to being a sustainable brand.

“We are delighted to be celebrating this new partnership with the Eco Rangers on their first anniversary and want to say a big thank-you to Abe Agnew and all the volunteers for their time and hard work in improving the local environment.”

Eco Rangers founder Abe Agnew said: “It’s fantastic for volunteers to have access to a welcome cup of coffee from Barista Bar®, especially in their ‘Keep Me’ cups which is very fitting to our cause. Our volunteers can pop into SPAR/EUROSPAR/ViVo/ViVOXTRA outlets for a top up, especially as we head into the colder autumn and winter days. A single reusable coffee cup can replace 3,000 disposable cups and the Eco Rangers are pleased to promote their use in this way.

“Our Eco Rangers proudly carry out daily litter picking across an area of 650 square miles and have removed thousands of bags of waste material from the local environment in the past 12 months. We have been overjoyed to see the difference our work has made.

“We work closely with Mid and East Antrim Council who supply and dispose of the blue bags we use for litter collection. Building collaborative links with local government, businesses and communities is key to making significant changes in regard to waste and litter and so we are delighted to embark on this partnership with Henderson Foodservice’s Barista Bar.”

To become an Eco Ranger or to support the group in any other way, contact them at ecorangerlarne@gmail.com or via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ecorangersni/

Caption: Pictured with Eco Rangers volunteers is Keavy O’Mahoney-Truesdale, Barista Bar® Brand Manager, and Abe Agnew, founder of Eco Rangers.

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