I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak. Today we are deputising for Mr. Eugene Scally who is recovering from a recent illness and, unfortunately, is unable to attend. We are here solely to represent Scallys of Clonakilty and not in any other capacity.
Scallys SuperValu, Clonakilty, began in 1983 when Mr. Eugene Scally acquired a building on the Bandon side of the town of Clonakilty in west Cork. Given the economic climate of the time very few people would have thought that a viable business could emerge from such a site in a sleepy west Cork town. However, Mr. Eugene Scally had different ideas. He planned to turn this site into a supermarket and set the foundations for his business and life in west Cork.
Today, approximately 26 years later, Scallys of Clonakilty is to the forefront of Irish retailing. An award winning supermarket, winning prestigious awards such as the national supreme hygiene award, the Checkout "Best in Fresh" awards, the SuperValu national store of the year award 2010 and the BIM national seafood store of the year 2010, to name but a few. Today Scallys is recognised as one of the most innovative food retailing outlets in the country.
Central to the success of Scallys of Clonakilty are the people who work there, the customers who support us and the suppliers who supply us. Currently we employ 130 workers in our store, to whom we are committed to offering sustainable and stable employment. We have built our business on offering our customers a superior level of service, quality, range and value. Our dedicated workforce has been instrumental in our success and for that we are extremely grateful.
At the inception of our new store in 2004, as part of our strategic planning process, we formulated our company mission statement which reads:
Scallys Promise: We take pride in bringing you the finest quality, freshest food. We are passionate about our store standards and customer service. We are proud of our role within the local community. We endeavour to add value and enjoyment to your shopping experience. It is our pleasure to serve you.
Our vision statement reads, "SuperValu Clonakilty strives to become synonymous with fresh food - and organic, natural and local foods in west Cork."
A company's role in the local community can be construed in many different ways. We are fully aware of our dependence on the local community in which we operate our business and for this reason we have always been compelled to give back to the community in return for the support we have received throughout the years, whether it be through local sponsorship of events or charities or through the support of local enterprise and locally-produced goods. In Scallys we believe in buying local products and providing an outlet for local people to purchase these products.
The following excerpt was taken from the John and Sally McKenna, Bridgestone Irish Food Guide, page 121:
Twenty five years of doing the good thing, that's what Eugene Scally and his team have managed to do in Clonakilty. Their modus operandi and their buzz-words are the very polar opposites of how conventional supermarket theory works. Instead, they talk about community, about service, about respect, about the local harvest.
In Clonakilty we are affiliated to the west Cork Leader scheme or Fuchsia brands, an initiative to promote rural development. We believe this type of initiative should be rolled out nationally on a regional basis. Indeed we have enjoyed working together with Leader and the Fuchsia brands as they have been very successful in helping small producers meet all the standards necessary to supply an outlet such as ours. Together we are all committed to ensuring the sustainability of the rural community in which we live. We provide local farmers both organic and conventional, cheese makers and local artisan food producers, with an outlet to sell their goods without the hassle and red tape of dealing with a large multiple type operation.
Today we deal with 55 local west Cork food producers on a direct basis - that is separate from purchasing from the Musgrave group through the SuperValu group - from whom in 2009 we purchased a combined total of €1,809,816 worth of goods. In addition to the 130 employees in Scallys, there are a further approximately 808 employed by these local producers. At Scallys we believe in treating these suppliers in a fair manner, we provide them with a fair price for their goods and we pay them on time for the goods they supply. We recognise the size of these operations and we strive to ensure the sustainability of such enterprises within our locality.
I would like to give an example of the local sponsorship we have been involved with in recent years. In promoting our own local heroes, we encouraged our customers to support local producers and rewarded the customers' chosen national school for doing so. This promotion was facilitated by our value club system and saw us donate a total of €10,000 to local national schools. We have also been involved in the sponsorship of local initiatives and charities such as the west Cork model railway village, local GAA clubs, local Tidy Towns committees, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Clonakilty hospital. As part of SuperValu we are also involved in the sponsorship at a group level of the national Tidy Towns awards, the GAA All-Ireland football championship and the west Cork annual Garda youth awards.
We will not dwell on the finer details of the retail planning guidelines, but simply express some of the worries we have should there be changes to the guidelines in their current format. At present we are very concerned at possible changes to the retail planning guidelines. We fully believe that in their current format the guidelines have struck the right balance in accommodating new retail development. We believe that if the sequential test which favours town first development or the cap which currently limits retail outlets to 3,000 sq. m., it is 3,500 sq. m. in the greater Dublin area, were to be removed it would pave the way for significant out of town retail developments. In our opinion this would be catastrophic for employment and the sustainability of many enterprises in rural towns such as Clonakilty. We believe that large multiple type operations would not offer the same support to local indigenous enterprises and would result in job losses in rural communities. We fully believe that it is vital to protect employment in our small local industries and that by sustaining and creating these types of jobs we are adding to the viability of rural Ireland.
The lack of retail planning guidelines in the UK has allowed huge retail outlets to be developed in strategic locations. This has wiped out many rural towns in the UK. As these outlets dedicate much of their floor space to items other than food, it has resulted in the closure of other types of retail outlets in towns, creating what is now known as the ghost town phenomena. In the UK the National Retail Planning Forum carried out an examination of the impact on local employment of the opening of 96 superstores throughout England and Wales and issued a report. The forum concluded that "each Superstore opening resulted in an average net loss of employment of 276 full time equivalents". The number of UK farm workers also fell by 100,000. The opening of these larger stores would in the long run result in the closure of local shops, the loss of local jobs, less competition and less choice for local people. This concludes the story from Scallys in Clonakilty. We are aware, however, that many other retail outlets both in the SuperValu chain and other independent and symbol group stores have a similar story to tell as our own.
I thank the Chairman and members for taking the time to listen to us and we hope that our views will be taken into consideration when a decision is made on this matter. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.
