University graduate’s new business picks up 30,000 customers.
When university student Sarah Balle left for Europe seven years ago, she didn’t expect it would give her the inspiration for a business that is fast becoming a Kiwi success story.
It was while in the Netherlands on a university study tour that the idea of establishing an online digital supermarket began to form in her mind - an idea that would change her life.
Undertaken as part of her study for an EMBA (Executive Master of Business Administration) through the Massey University Business School, Balle spent 10 days visiting businesses including supermarkets and fruit and vegetable growers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
“It was a time when online supermarkets were just starting and I wondered why no-one was doing it in New Zealand,” she says. “Their food innovation was incredible and I was interested in what they were doing around sustainability.”
Back home in Auckland Balle, who was working as a chartered accountant, graduated with her EMBA in 2015. But she never forgot what she had seen in Europe and, in early 2021 took the plunge by launching Supie, the Kiwi version of the online supermarkets that so impressed her in the Netherlands.
Balle’s aim is to become the “Netflix of grocery shopping”. She is well on the way - in little more than 18 months since Supie ‘opened’ to customers, the business has exploded. With over 30,000 members and 375 suppliers it offers 7000 products - and has plans to add another 2000 in the first quarter of 2023.
Balle is certain her visit to Europe was a key to the idea for Supie: “Yes, 100 per cent I might not have done it if not for the Executive MBA study tour to Europe.”
But she also attributes her own upbringing - she grew up on a Pukekohe market garden her parents still run - and her time studying for the EMBA as important influences on her decision to launch a business career.
“I always knew I would get into business either by helping drive someone else’s or setting up my own,” she says. “But doing the EMBA was profoundly transformational for me. It gave me the confidence I could start a business and having it on my CV provided additional credibility when I was raising capital (to launch Supie); it was a tick of approval and showed I could persevere in something.”
Balle also believes her fellow students helped. “There was an incredible diversity of people in my cohort - it included lawyers, tech people, top marketers - and gave me access to the views of more people than you would get in a job.”
Growing up on a vegetable farm, Balle says she watched truck-loads of produce being dumped season after season because it did not meet the standards of New Zealand supermarkets.
“I found the amount of food waste staggering and wanted to find a way to redirect some of it to people who need it most,” she says. “It was a problem I was driven to solve and how Supie was born.”
With an innovative business model using the tools Balle learnt and developed through the EMBA, Supie is able to market a range of products, many from small, local suppliers unable to get shelf space in the big supermarkets like Countdown and New World. It delivers to customers’ doors direct from the supplier and is available to shoppers throughout the country on themarket.com platform.
Balle says food wastage, lack of innovation and ever-increasing grocery prices in the industry “is awful” and while Supie already has competitive pricing, she hopes as sales volumes increase it will be able to offer even cheaper prices - and disrupt the industry in a way similar to 2degrees in telecommunications in the early 2000s.
“Our mission is to ensure all Kiwis have access to affordable and healthy food, no matter their postcode, which is becoming increasingly important with the rising cost-of-living,” she says.
Despite her success, the road has not been easy. She threw all her life savings into establishing the business - she even sold her car - has moved back in with her parents and puts in long hours every day.
“Still living with Mum and Dad in my mid-30s is fascinating to say the least,” she says. “I’m very lucky because they are super supportive and continually provide the inspiration for having a strong work ethic and creating the change we want to see in the world.”
Balle graduated with her EMBA after two years of study. The qualification prepares people for top-level roles in business, government and non-profit organisations and the Massey programme is the longest running of its kind in New Zealand (it started in 1972).
The Massey Business School is rated in the top five per cent of global business colleges by the US-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
For more information go to: www.massey.ac.nz/studyemba