talking shop
Monday February 4 2019 THE NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM, BIRMINGHAM
A new venture
Independent Worcester cookshop Cookmate opened a cookery school upstairs in April. Director Caroline Gregory shares her story
When I met my husband Andrew
Gregory and moved further away from Kitchenmonger’s head office, I decided to leave and help him with his housewares agency business. A year or so down the line, I realised how much I missed product and buying. So I approached my local cookshop, Cookmate in Worcester, and asked if they were interested in selling. The rest is history.
“More and more
people of all ages are now looking for
that, I started to sell fitness wear and specialist footwear. This proved to be very successful, so I opened a fitness and leisurewear shop in Cheltenham, branching out into swimwear, ski wear and après ski wear. Following this I worked for Denise Rogers, helping to run her seven fashion outlets, then went onto work for [Denise and Brian’s former cookshop chain] Kitchenmonger.
M
y passion and first job was in fitness. I was a fitness instructor for 11 years and on the back of
experiences - and less are looking for ‘stuff’”
The 1,200sq ft shop is on Broad Street in the
city centre. It opened in 1981 and we took over in 2006, so the shop has been trading for 37 years. We have two full-timers and six part- timers (plus me). Historically, we’ve been mainly ‘cookshop’ but more recently, we’ve diversified further into gift and home. Categories covered are
Reps and agents are key to our product
selection. New suppliers are mostly found at trade shows, which are hugely important to us. But over the last two years, retail has changed enormously. In the past I could happily predict what would sell. Now we take each day at a time and try to react as quickly as possible. For example, last year we struggled to sell pan sets. Instead, we sold more individual pans. But that has changed back again. And our top selling lines vary much more than in the past, though [this Spring] we did really well with Sara Miller London from Portmeirion - but that was mainly due to Mother’s Day. Recently we’ve been very aware of the changes to retail and have looked at ways we can set ourselves apart from our competitors. More and more people of all ages are now looking for experiences - and less are looking for ‘stuff’. Not easy! Where do we fit in as a cookshop? We believe that with more awareness of health and fitness, cooking at home should become a larger part of family life. With this in mind, we started running
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housewareslive.net •
HousewaresLive.net •
twitter.com/Housewaresnews June 2018
glassware, bakeware, cookware, giftware, tabletop, knives, storageware, small electricals, textiles - and some homeware. We deal with 60 suppliers at the moment and about 40 brands. Names include Robert Welch Designs, Simplehuman, Stellar and Judge (from Horwood), Henckels, Demeyere, Staub, Le Creuset, La Cafetiere, Portmeirion, Royal Worcester, Sophie Allport, KitchenAid, Dualit, Mason , Kilner, Lock & Lock, Good Grips, Joseph Joseph, Sterck, Kuhn Rikon, T&G Woodware, Cole & Mason, Emma Bridgewater and MasterClass (from KitchenCraft).
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