Monday February 4 2019 THE NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM, BIRMINGHAM
with its own set of challenges. However, we believe that our strength in
knife sales - and in particular, our skills and experience in the repair and sharpening area - will allow us to create a niche we can defend and grow in the coming years. We will be working with the brands we love
“We’re excited by the
prospect of taking on new challenges”
and the ones that have supported us so well over the past 20 years or so - because these are the products we know and the people behind these brands have helped us make a success of our current business. In particular we will be offering ranges from Zwilling J.A. Henckels, Wusthof, Global, Robert
Welch Designs, Gude, Victorinox,
I.O.Shen and Kai Shun, along with a broad range of knife accessories and equipment. We will broaden our offer as time progresses, but this will be based on what we learn over the weeks and months ahead. Our target customer will still be the keen home cook who needs sharp and well cared for knives. In this respect, we’re looking to team up with one of the major national housewares retailers to enable them, with our help, to offer their own ‘in house’ knife sharpening and repair service. We know from our years of experience this
can create strong brand loyalty and provide another destination service to their offer. Talks on this will start in the coming weeks, once our website is up and running. We also do a lot of sharpening and repair
work for local chefs, and we’re looking at ways to meaningfully extend this service to catering
comment
professionals throughout the UK. In the future, we will be looking at running other business opportunities alongside The Knife Expert, and right now we’re considering two quite different options. We’re excited by the prospect of taking on new challenges that don’t involve a high street location!
Bruce Crane on costs, customers and industry camaraderie
Tell us a bit about Loose’s Cookshop. Loose’s Cookshop can trace its roots back to 1791, when Jimmy Loose opened a small hardware shop close to Norwich cathedral on Magdalen Street. Over the past 230 years the shop has sold a
diverse selection of goods including paint, timber, cottage whitewash, the finest bone china and crystal and all sorts of ‘collectables’, through to the current cookshop offering we have today. My grandfather Gerald Brett bought Loose’s
from direct descendants of the original founder Jimmy Loose in 1933, and it’s been in our family since then.
What’s your background? I graduated from Loughborough University in 1984 with a degree in Business, and an interest in retailing. I spent my first years working for brief periods in Harrods and John Lewis in London, followed by time at one of the UK’s largest catering equipment distributors. In 1985, I moved from London to Norfolk to join the family business Loose’s Ltd, which operated a traditional china and glass shop and Loose’s Catering Equipment, a large catering equipment distribution company. In 1988 I left and went abroad to work in
Portugal for a retail developer who was helping major UK retailers open outlets in Lisbon, which was then a rapidly developing market. My timing couldn’t have been worse as the
UK property market collapsed in 1989 and the fallout saw me return to the UK, where
I joined Woolworths. I spent 10 years there working in the retail operations department at its head office in London. In 1999 I rejoined the family firm and
moved back up to Norfolk, and in 2004 I bought the retail business of Loose’s from my uncle and set up Loose’s Cookshop as you know it today, which I’ve run with my wife Claire-Louise since.
‘We’re planning the next stage of our adventure in housewares’
What’s been the biggest change since you became involved in the housewares industry? Two things have changed significantly. Firstly, the arrival of the internet, and the
ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, from the comfort of our armchair. Secondly, the disproportionate increase in costs imposed on businesses operating from the high street. These two factors have changed the way
customers buy things, and the way retailers have to sell things. All the other changes are in the scheme of things are irrelevant.
What will you miss most about high street retailing? Friends and the industry camaraderie.
What will you miss least? Trying to find reasons to justify falling sales and tightening margins, at a time where government policy has consistently driven up costs for small businesses like ours. Oh… and dealing with customer returns and faulty goods!
What are the biggest issues facing high street independent retailers today? There is only one issue, and it’s this: can you find a niche that you can defend, that’s capable of generating sales you can live off, with costs you can afford to pay? It’s called survival and I think in the short
term this is going to get harder for small independent retailers like us.
Name one change you would make to the housewares industry. I can’t think of one that would make a difference for our sector! I love the housewares industry. The changes needed now are far bigger than our sector. The whole ‘bricks and mortar’ component
of the retail industry is under threat and the solution to this problem lies in substantially lowering the costs of retailing on the high street. Don’t hold your breath, it’s nowhere in sight…
During your time in the housewares industry, what products have impressed you most and why? Knives - and lots of them! They’re beautiful, very practical and are used in every form of food preparation, no matter what type of food you’re in to. And they last a lifetime!
June 2018
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HousewaresLive.net
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