Monday February 4 2019 THE NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM, BIRMINGHAM
the big interview
Students learn about the culinary arts at the Divertimenti cookery school
now. Whitefriars was built after we opened and has obviously grown since.” [Whitefriars Shopping Centre in Canterbury is the biggest shopping centre in East Kent.] He notes: “Don’t forget that before this point, we’d
never shut a store because we didn’t really need to. But obviously, when times are tough, it makes you think: ‘Right, what do we really need to keep?’ In the past, we always renewed leases. Now, it’s a question of asking: ‘Does that definitely make sense?’ Having said that, we’ve just renewed the lease of our Bournemouth store. “But we’ve decided to make a change from being a company with a lot of freeholds, because when you have a lot of freeholds, you have a lot of borrowings as well. We’ve almost repaid all our borrowings and by the end of the year we expect to be completely debt-free.” His priority now, he says, is “to just make the business a bit simpler, because I think people do forget what we’ve actually done in the last t wo years.” In 2017 Steamer traded with 647 housewares suppliers and carried about 8,000 to 9,000 SKUS. Core categories were, and remain, coffee, cookware and knives But following the integration of Steamer with the
Kitchens Cookshop business, those numbers have trimmed to about 500 suppliers and over 8,000 SKUS because, says Ben, “there was some overlap”. However, when it comes to Divertimenti “we’re actually going the other way”.
Plans for Divertimenti He explains: “Obviously when we acquired Divertimenti, we had so much stock in there. It’s
September/October 2018
taken over a year to sell through a lot of the lines which we perhaps don’t want going forward. Now there’s a really good opportunity to focus on the best lines and the best suppliers - and to add in significantly more newness and specialist lines.” Ben has ambitious plans for the London
“We’re going to underpin
what we always imagined for Divertimenti, which is that it becomes the best cookshop in Europe”
cookshop, which celebrated its golden anniversary in 2013. “We’ve seen very good underlying growth from Divertimenti since we took it on. And we’re now going to underpin what we always imagined for the store, which is that it becomes the best cookshop in Europe.” He continues: “This is a store in the middle of
Knightsbridge that has a devoted and affluent following. They’re much more international, and many will have invested significantly in their kitchens, and will have strong foodie credentials as well. “They expect Divertimenti to offer them something that’s a bit different and a bit exclusive, with very knowledgeable customer service. And that’s what we’re going to work on.” In some ways, he says, it’s a more serious cookshop than Steamer. “Steamer has always been
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about ‘everything for the kitchen’ – and also about having a bit of fun as well. I think Divertimenti is more premium, more serious and more about products that you cannot find so easily elsewhere.” He cites the example of the Solimene range of
hand-decorated Italian tableware, which has become synonymous with Divertimenti since it first began stocking it over 30 years ago (and now offers a selection of exclusive designs). “It’s absolutely old school Divertimenti; it survives and thrives here.” Ben has personally taken over “a bit of the ‘unique’ buying for Divertimenti”, for several reasons. “Firstly, I live locally so it’s convenient. And I’m probably the one who has spent most time with Divertimenti, because I’ve gone through the process of looking at the ranges they had when we acquired them - looking at what sold well in the past. And hopefully, I have a good instinct. “I think it’s the sort of store that does need to be bought with a sort of single vision. And as the owner of the business, I can take a decision that’s maybe not utterly commercial -such as stocking a fabulous meat slicer or duck press for instance - if I feel they give more creditability to the brand.” Looking ahead, Ben concludes: “It’s well documented that business on the high street is very tough and clearly we’re not immune to that. People are very price sensitive these days - there are cost pressures out there. “There’s been quite a period of turmoil which has
affected virtually every large name on the high street. It’s still going to be very tough out there but there will always be a way through that. I think we will see certainly more causalities though – both independents and multiples.”
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