Posh Nosh chain dines out on upmarket tastes

Nosh has five gourmet food stores in Auckland and plans to open more next year. Photo / Martin Sykes

It's not all about truffle oil and pomegranate molasses, say the owners of Nosh, the rapidly expanding specialty food retailer.

In fact, the chain, now with five stores around the Auckland region, has dropped the word "gourmet" from its branding and is taking the supermarkets on in fresh food categories such as butchery, fruit and vegetables.

Last week Nosh opened its latest store in Matakana, hot on the heels of a new Mt Eden outlet and following the opening of its Greenlane store earlier in the year.

Founders Clinton Beauvink and Chris Moore say their aim is to build a nationwide network of stores.

As the supermarkets have also found, the recession has boosted sales of fresh food, as consumers swap eating out for making meals at home using quality produce.

The frequency of Nosh customers' purchases showed they were using the store for their regular shopping, not just to buy specialty products, Beauvink said.

Price was important, but so was quality and getting fresh food into the store as quickly as possible was "an art". Supermarkets had built up massive distribution networks and Nosh was up against that.

"For us it's a great expense, but it's fundamentally important to make sure that we can deliver the quality promise across all stores."

Because of that, Nosh's expansion would be confined to the Auckland region for the time being. Setting up as far afield as Wellington would require establishing new supply lines as it could not be done from Auckland, Beauvink said.

Opening new outlets also required waiting until sites suitable for the large Nosh format came up, and that was another benefit the tougher economic times had provided.

Moore and Beauvink both have backgrounds in the fast-moving consumer goods sector - Beauvink's first job was as a merchandiser for Pepsi - so they approached Nosh first from a commercial perspective.

But they were passionate about the concept and food was an addictive business, Beauvink said.

He would not say what Nosh's turnover was, citing the extremely competitive nature of the food retailing business, but said it was a high-turnover, small-margin business.

So far its bankers had been supportive and the aim was to open three more stores next year.