City setting for Bin Inn's gathering

Trevor Craig said Bin Inn's core business remains, allowing customers to come and fill their own containers and bottles with a range of foodstuffs and products.

Bin Inn will hold its national conference in Tauranga in May bringing 70 to 80 store owners and their partners, from Kerikeri to Invercargill, to town.

The retail co-operative's business development manager, Trevor Craig, said the decision to hold the national conference in Tauranga came as a result of Bin Inn shifting its head office support centre from Auckland to Mount Maunganui in 2013.

Mr Craig, who has lived in the Bay since 1989, said the relocation was part of the deal he struck with the Bin Inn board when he took up his position in 2012.

"I put the argument, and the board totally agreed, that you don't need to be in Auckland these days to conduct your business - and it goes for a lot of companies.

"When we've got suppliers and stores from one end of the country to the other, it makes no difference. I have a big chunk of stores much closer to me here now than they ever were when we operated out of Auckland.

"We're ideally located here because we've got a hub of stores in the Central North Island."

Bin Inn's 37 stores include its new Tauranga store in Papamoa. The core business remains allowing customers to come and fill their own containers and bottles with a range of foodstuffs and products, but the company changed its strategy in recent years to enter the whole foods and specialist grocery market, said Mr Craig.

"That's a big part of where our growth is coming from. We've developed a lot of modern health foods, which has allowed our stores to expand on to a wider horizon and attract customers who are very focused on and conscious about what they eat." Typically Bin Inn had a national conference every couple of years, but it was almost three years since the last one. Being based locally and wanting a beach location, it made sense to find a venue in the area, said Mr Craig, who praised the newly-opened Papamoa Beach Conference Centre's state-of-the-art facilities. The 100-seater venue was ideal for mid-sized events, he added. The fact the centre could also accommodate out-of-town visitors was another plus.

The centre is situated in the Papamoa Beach TOP 10 Holiday Resort, owned by the Crosby family.

Marketing co-ordinator Nikita Fraser said since opening, the centre had hosted events for groups including Tourism Bay of Plenty, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the Department of Conservation.

To meet the needs of conference attendees, the resort last month opened two new three-bedroom units, which could sleep 10 people each, adjoining the conference centre.