Nosh pulls back on expansion plans

Nosh chief executive Hayden Syers. Photo / Chris Gorman

Upmarket grocery chain Nosh has pulled back on expansion plans outside its core Auckland markets in the central, eastern suburbs and North Shore.

The company closed its poor performing Hamilton store in February and will not go ahead with outlets that had been planned for Tauranga and Pukekohe.

"We just decided that we were going to concentrate on our Auckland stores," said Nosh chief executive Hayden Syers.

Nosh has been under new management since the middle of last year, when Syers' father-in-law Paul Lucas injected capital into the business and bought the shares of former chief executive and co-founder Clinton Beuvink.

"When we bought into the business we inherited three store commitments [Pukekohe, Tauranga and Pakuranga] that the prior management had already signed up," Syers said.

He said the Hamilton experience had prompted Nosh not to go ahead with the Pukekohe location, while its joint venture partners for the Tauranga store had had "second thoughts" about the business.

Nosh would still go ahead with the Pakuranga store, which was scheduled to open in October, Syers said.

"We're happy where we're at the moment ... Business is good for us."

Nosh currently operates stores in Mt Eden, Ponsonby, Glen Innes, Greenlane, Constellation Dr on the North Shore, Matakana and Mt Maunganui.

Beuvink told the Business Herald in 2011 that he wanted Nosh to have 40 stores up-and-running and a 5 per cent share of the New Zealand grocery market, currently worth around $17 billion a year, by 2016.

Syers said last year that Beuvink's target had been "very ambitious".