Over the past month Shelflife has bid a fond farewell to Caroline Byrne. While Byrne was in the editor chair for the past 18 months, she always had her finger on the pulse for industry news and happenings. During her tenure she was instrumental in developing the very successful website, www.shelflife.ie and ensuring that the magazine remained the main source of retail trade news in the country. Everyone at ShelfLife wishes her the very best in her future endeavours.
As the new editor, I’m no stranger to the trade, having previously spent four years working on the title as staff journalist, assistant editor and deputy editor so it is with great pleasure that I now step into the editor role. For the past two years I have had the wonderful experience of living in Hong Kong and working for The South China Morning Post, the main English broadsheet newspaper in Hong Kong and Southern China. Living in Asia was a fantastic experience but being away also makes you appreciate many things about home. One of those is a renewed recognition of the Irish convenience store sector. The standard of convenience stores in Hong Kong and China pales in comparison to what we have in Ireland. Granted, you can’t walk ten steps without seeing a 7 Eleven but the range of products and services is severely limited in comparison to what you find in a typical Irish store. Gillian Hamill’s interview with Con Moloney (page 22), the proprietor of a high calibre forecourt in Laois, demonstrates just how sophisticated our convenience model is. more >