Mitre-10 Levin wins trophy at Mitre 10 national awards night

Mitre-10 Levin staff Aku Biddle, Mark Williams, Matt Elliott and Vincent Brien with the Mitre 10 Trade Business of the Year award.

Mitre-10 Levin has won the Trade Business of the Year (small format) category at the 2024 Mitre 10 Awards.

The store’s win was announced at an awards dinner last week, and owner Emma van Echten (Brown) said winning reflects the hard work of the staff.

“It’s awesome. We came runner-up in the category last year and the team have worked hard and gone above and beyond to win this year. The team at Mitre 10 Levin are amazing.”

The Mitre 10 Awards celebrates the success of the Kiwi co-operative, which has 84 locally owned stores and employs over 8000 staff nationwide.

The Trade Business of the Year award is divided into two categories, once for the large format MEGA stores and the other for a small formal Mitre 10. This year, the large format award went to Mitre 10 MEGA Napier and Hastings.

The award is for the store with the best trade business across the group, said van Echten.

“It goes to the store who looks after their trade customers and has a good sense of trade while helping to grow the local trade market.”

Mitre 10 Levin was a deserving winner, according to the judging comments.

“Having invested in people, process and the right range of building materials over the last year. Mitre 10 Levin has organised its business to allow for substantial growth and better support our core customer base which is small to medium residential builders.”

Van Echten said she and her father Jake Slykhuis, who migrated from the Netherlands in 1957, bought the store in 1996. They had purchased the Foxton Hammer Hardware store 12 years earlier.

She said Levin is a wonderful place to live.

“It’s a beautiful hub with a robust community.”

Van Echten said the store regularly supports the community it’s based in.

“We help with lots of sports clubs as we want to encourage youth to get outside and play sports instead of sitting inside on their devices.”

At the awards dinner, Mitre 10 Chairman Andrew Smith said he is proud of what the stores do to support and grow the Mitre-10 co-operative.

“The bar has been set very high and I want to acknowledge everyone here for your efforts and energy through the challenging trading conditions of the past 12 months.”