Cooking up a storm

Terry Donnan, Daybreak project coordinator, Paul Mullen, Daybreak territory manager, and retailers Paul Doyle and Pauline Maguire

Restaurant owners Pauline Maguire and Paul Doyle are carving out a reputation for providing quality homemade produce at their new Daybreak store in Ferns, Wexford

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15 December 2010

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Daybreak Ferns
The Square
Ferns
Co Wexford

Retailers: Pauline Maguire and Paul Doyle
Size: 2,200 sq ft
Staff: 11

‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’ has become a widely accepted nugget of wisdom. But not in the case of Pauline Maguire and Paul Doyle; the owners of the new Daybreak Ferns store in Co. Wexford.

The duo, who also own a 70-seater restaurant in nearby Enniscorthy, demonstrated that they weren’t afraid of tackling new challenges – both in and outside the kitchen – when they decided to open their new store on 11 November this year.

Part of the community

As a native of the area, Maguire knew the location of the new Daybreak store would prove a welcome addition to the village’s shopping repertoire. “This [building] has always been a supermarket,” she says. “Just at the corner here [in The Square] there was a pub and it had a grocery section in it as well. We had three grocery places and then they closed and that is such a shame, because they were such a part of the community and that has gone.”

She was subsequently delighted to be able to reopen a store in this part of the historical village of Ferns. In her view, an emphasis on the local offering the shop can deliver has helped their store differentiate itself from the multiples’ offerings.

Alongside their coffee or tea, customers can pick up tasty homemade bread and scones at the popular local store

Local heroes

“We buy a lot of local produce,” explains Maguire. “Our turnips are from Enniscorthy, our potatoes are Enniscorthy and Cranford. We buy local where we can and it makes it cheaper for us in the shop as well.” While local produce is a hit with the shop’s customers however, she adds that there is a certain amount of negotiation involved. “On the other hand, there’s a lot of the suppliers that won’t supply local traders, they’re into the big multiples and markets,” she notes.

As well as offering products from local suppliers, Daybreak Ferns can also supply customers with an array of home-baked goods from their own restaurant, such as homemade brown bread and scones. In fact the restaurant actually began life as a bread shop 14 years ago and progressed from there. “The kitchen in Enniscorthy has been helping out a lot just to get us up and going,” says Maguire. “They’ve been doing salads for us, and the brown bread, the scones.” However for the past two Sundays she has begun making bread for the store in its own kitchen and is looking forward to continuing to create an appetising range of homemade goods there once all the proper preparations are in place.

Going the extra mile

Indeed, stocking exactly what customers want and gaining a reputation for delivering a broad range, is a prime consideration for the store, which at the time of ShelfLife’s interview had not yet been open even a full fortnight. “Not every customer would come in and ask us for something, but some are coming in and asking for things we don’t have,” says the eager-to-please retailer. This has included some more unusual product requests such as one for sugar free beans. “I didn’t know they existed, the customer asked for it and we had it in on next day delivery,” says Maguire.

Customers have been pleasantly surprised by this flexible approach. Another elderly gentleman asked for Irish stew in a can, and returned saying good-naturedly, “I bet you didn’t get it in for me.” Fortunately, he was delighted when he found it ordered in especially. What’s more, ground almonds were another product request that confirmed Maguire’s observations that home baking is becoming an increasingly popular trend. “It’s a local area and people are going back to the traditions of doing home baking; they really and truly are.”

On the list

In fact, even the local schoolchildren have been impressed with the store’s range on this front. “We’ve a lot of school kids who do home economics, and they come in with their list and I’ll ask them what are you cooking tomorrow. They were doing chilli con carne one week, but on the first day they were shocked that we had kidney beans and we had fresh chilli. We had two things that they needed and they couldn’t believe it. I wanted to be forewarned what they were doing next week, so we could stock it.”

Such banter has provided good entertainment within the shop and Maguire has found she’s relishing the opportunity to reacquaint herself with the village’s residents. “There’s a lot of faces coming in and they sometimes don’t recognise you because I had red hair back then and I’m looking at them not knowing who they are either. But fortunately my mum’s in all the time and she’s telling me who’s who.”

In fact, before the shop was even open, the team found themselves inundated with job applications. From “the day the landlord had signed over the premises,” even without advertising for positions, “CVs started coming in the door straightaway. They were coming in to me in the restaurant as well. You didn’t want to lose any of them but it was impossible to keep track of them all. It was great, because we had a great workforce to choose from.”

A solid partnership

Having secured excellent staff, offering value on top of quality service, was another important consideration for the store. In fact, Maguire notes she recently visited a multiple and found that a few lines she checked were actually cheaper at her own store. Daybreak have proved pro-active in this respect and Maguire says she’s been more than happy with the service the group and particularly territory manager Paul Mullen have provided so far.

From the beginning, the two parties carved out a solid working relationship. “Initially the first meeting was with Paul [Mullen], and it was straight talking and what was on offer was clearly laid out and there was no gimmicks,” says an impressed Maguire. A lot of thought went into the store’s design along with the Daybreak team, but it has definitely paid off in her view. “I’m speaking to people who I grew up with and they can’t believe it’s the same store. They’re looking at it and asking ‘where did you get the space for that from’ and that’s what they can’t understand… A new ceiling and a new floor totally transformed it for starters.”

Top-up shop won’t stop

A clever layout has also made the shop look larger, even though the deli area actually lost space when it was squared off. “It looks bigger but it is actually smaller so there’s great deception going on down there,” laughs Maguire. And asked if she has any concerns about the future, she predicts that convenience sector sales will remain strong. “I think the days of people going out and doing a trolley with €300 in it are mostly gone.” Top-up shopping will not disappear however, because “times have changed, people don’t want waste. You’re not at the top of Mount Leinster, you don’t need to fill your pantry, and you buy what you want.”

Already she has noticed a major difference in the pace of the turnaround between the loaves sold in the shop section of her restaurant and the new Daybreak store. “In the restaurant if I was looking at the shelves and there were 10 loaves at 3pm, I’d think, 10 loaves, they won’t be sold. Whereas you could have a dozen loaves here at 6pm and you could go down at 6.30pm and they’re all gone, so there’s a lot of people commuting home and stopping here to pick up the couple of necessities that they need.”

Forward-thinking

Looking towards the future, a wine licence is due to arrive shortly at the store which should prove a strong earner. The team also plan to introduce the Lotto and place a greater focus on the fuels category in-store, including a larger range of logs and briquettes. “Overall, we want to fine tune the store and perform well in all sections. I think we’re doing things well in the restaurant and so I want this venture to be on a par with that,” says Maguire. Based on the feedback they’ve received during their first two weeks, locals certainly seem impressed with what the entrepreneurs have served up for their delectation so far!

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