INTERVIEW
WITH KINVARA SMOKED SALMON HAVING CARVED A DISTINCTIVE NICHE IN BOTH THE UK AND IRISH MARKETS OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS, MANAGING DIRECTOR DECLAN DRONEY TELLS SORCHA CORCORAN HOWHE IS NOWUPPING THE ANTE ON THE COMPANY’SWEB STRATEGY
Before setting up Kinvara Smoked Salmon in the picturesque village in CoGalway of the same name,Declan Droney made an important observation while working in the Irish seafood industry in the late Eighties and early Nineties. “I worked in a shellfish company and after that managed a
smoke house,which gaveme a good grounding in the business. The one thing that struckmewas that everybody in Irelandwas focused on production; therewas a lot of grant aid to develop the production side and not amassive focus on sales andmarketing,” he recalls. “I could see there was a glaring hole and set up Kinvara as an
outsourcing business. I don’t have a smoke house,but rather out- source to a number of smoke houses,which freesme up to focus on sales and marketing. It turns out this was a very good deci- sion, as we have since outgrown a lot of the guys that used to produce for us at the start.” With 60pc of its business in the UK,Kinvara faced serious
challenges in the past couple of years due to the recession, the changing exchange rate for sterling and the UK’s organic industry being under pressure.Droney describes it as “A per- fect storm of bad stuff for 18 months.” But, from an early age, he appears to have been driven and
quick to react and his clear-minded strategy over the past 10 years of running Kinvara have stood the business in good stead.
Having grown up on a farm in the west of Ireland,Droney
says he always knew he’d set up his own business. He hated school and left after fifth year, sure he’d never want
to go back to education.However, in the past couple of years he’s done a degree in strategicmanagement as well as amaster’s in business administration (MBA). “I enjoyed the MBA as it put a lot of theorywhat I had been doing in practice for the past 10 years.” HisMBA dissertation focused on changing the company’s
route to market,which was part of his regrouping strategy to survive the difficult economic times. “About 90pc of our sales are to the retail sector, either through distributors or direct to the retailers.We also supply direct to consumers through our website, which is an area we hope to develop further in the future,” he says. “We have redeveloped the website, and set up a Facebook
page, which I think is quite powerful. One of the ways we developed the brand in the UK was by attending consumer ex- hibitions such asTheCountry LivingChristmas Showin Lon- don. This is where 35,000 wealthy London ladies come to do their Christmas shopping. So it is exactly our target market.” Kinvara aims to attend 20 consumer shows in theUKin 2011.
At the various consumer fairs, visitors get to taste Kinvara’s products and meet the people behind them, and this helped to
Organicmatters VOL 3 ISSUE 3 2010 OWNER MANAGER 13
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