The brand story

Fergal Quinn opened his first store in Dundalk Co Louth in 1960, marking the birth of an iconic Irish retail brand. Since those early days, Superquinn has expanded its footprint to become a nationwide chain of 24 stores, now employing over 3,500 people.

Renowned for delivering the highest standards in quality, fresh food and customer service in an ever-changing and competitive retail landscape, the company has continued to focus on these core strengths but has also evolved to respond to new market challenges.

Superquinn has a strong presence in the Dublin area, with 14 stores throughout the city and county, but has also expanded nationally, with stores in Kilkenny, Carlow, Clonmel, Dundalk, Waterford, Limerick, Bray, Charlesland, Naas and, most recently, Portlaoise which opened in August 2008.

Within its stores and at the point of contact with customers, responsibility and authority reside with staff, who are encouraged, trained and rewarded to deliver an enjoyable and memorable shopping experience. This year, Superquinn invested heavily in rolling out a new training initiative across the entire business.Superquinn has been an employer in local communities for decades and is committed to supporting Irish jobs not only through its network of stores, but also indirectly by supporting Irish producers. At Superquinn €4 out of every €5 is spent on fresh produce from local suppliers. 100pc of its fresh meat is Irish and fully traceable, while its local fruit and vegetable suppliers work around the clock to ensure that produce from the Keoghs, Clarke’s and McCormacks farms gets to its shelves in less than 24 hours.

Products and services

Superquinn is dedicated to fresh food. While it stocks a remarkably wide range of packaged grocery brands, fresh foods are its speciality. It offers the only fresh instore bakery of any supermarket brand in Ireland, with bread baked daily from 5am. The company employs expertly trained butchers at its meat counters to advise customers what cuts to go for and how best to cook them. One of the iconic products at Superquinn is the famous sausage, the main ingredient in any self-respecting full-Irish breakfast!

Superquinn refocused on New Product Development in 2007, dedicated to developing its own-brand labels, and in October 2007 the ‘Superior Quality’ SQ range was launched. Designed to provide a new range of food products for discerning food lovers, the SQ range now features 140 product lines, including the award-winning Dry Aged Beef, which won the prestigious Irish Food Writers Guild Award 2008.

Superquinn works with many smaller, artisan suppliers to create unique products, such as the SQ Yoghurts produced by Killowen, which recently won Gold at the inaugural Blas na hÉireann National Irish Food Awards.

The retailer is also well known for the added extras it gives the customer. Services such as bag packing, rainy-day umbrella service, carrying heavy items to the customers’ car and the removal of sweets from checkouts are examples of initiatives that demonstrate the company is truly consumer-led.

Innovation

Superquinn has built a well-known reputation for innovation during its long history. In 1973, it pioneered the idea of in-store food manufacturing adding a whole range of specialist fresh-food departments, including delicatessens, pizza, pasta, salad, bakers and sausage kitchens where food is prepared fresh every day. Back in the early Nineties, Superquinn also pioneered Ireland’s first retail loyalty scheme, SuperClub, now known as the Superquinn Reward Card — www.superquinn.ie/rewards.

It was the first grocery retail multiple to offer online shopping through Superquinn4food (www.superquinn.ie) which launched in October 2000, and now offers online shopping from its Portlaoise, Waterford, Kilkenny, Limerick, Bray, Ballinteer, Lucan and Swords stores.

In 2006, Superquinn began investing in an extensive programme of refurbishment and redesign of its stores, which continues today. Blanchardstown was the first store to undergo a refurbishment, creating the benchmark for other stores with its unique market-style fresh-food area. Since then, 10 stores have been redesigned in this style. Additional stores have been identified for refurbishment in the coming years.

In terms of technology, Superquinn has long been a leader in the market, offering a range of checkout options for customers, including the traditional checkout, self-service checkouts, and Super Scan, which is unique to Superquinn in Ireland. Super Scan allows customers to add up the value of the items they put into their basket as they go through the store, using an electronic handheld device they hand to the cashier at the special Super Scan checkout.

Marketing and promotion

Renowned for quality, fresh Irish food and an unbeatable range, much of Superquinn’s advertising in the past has focused on the provenance of the products available in Superquinn, their high-quality standards and the importance of buying Irish where possible, with campaigns such as ‘Fresh Thinking’ and ‘Proud to Buy Irish’.

Superquinn is not only about fresh food. It has always offered great-value groceries, which has been backed up by the Sept 2008 National Consumer Agency price survey, and the response by consumers to the very successful 1970s Roll Back price promotion.

November 2008, however, sees the launch of a new advertising campaign and a new brand mantra for the retailer — ‘You’re the Business’ — which will be used across all brand communications. The campaign cements the positioning of the retailer in a cluttered marketplace, with an honest expression of how Superquinn places its customers at the heart of its business. Simply put, ‘they are the business’.

‘You’re the Business’ represents Superquinn’s biggest-ever marketing investment to date, encompassing TV, print, outdoor, radio and digital advertising, and is the first campaign to be produced for it by the team at Rothco.