Ballina Information Blog

Ritchies Supa IGA in Ballina Central has been announced the winner of the IGA International Retailer of the Year Award for 2008.

The local supermarket competed against 5000 stores in 44 countries to win the prestigious award. Regional manager David Scally accepted the award at a ceremony held in Phoenix, Arizona, in the USA.

Ballina store manager, Lloyd Glassey, said his supermarket stood out because he employed happy people, stocked as much local produce as possible, and gave generously to community charities.

The 4000 sq m Ballina supermarket is the largest independent supermarket in Australia but still stocks over 100 local products like coffee, muesli, yoghurt, honey, biscuits and condiments.

There are over 2000 local products on the shelves. “The big supermarkets can’t do that,” Mr Glassey said.

In the two years since it opened, the Ritchies Ballina supermarket has given $50,000 to the local rescue helicopter, more than $30,000 to local schools and substantial amounts to local organisations like the Ballina Surf Life Saving Club.

Mr Glassey said friendly and happy staff was another reason for the store’s success and he tried to employ happy people.

The store employs 120 staff. “My policy is if you haven’t got a happy disposition, we don’t want you to work here,” Mr Glassey said. “Let’s face it, a lot of people shopping don’t want to be shopping so you may as well make it as pleasant as possible.”

The award is based on a wide range of factors including store presentation, quality of fresh produce, store ambience, customer service and sales figures.

The international award follows an award for Australian Retailer of the Year won by the Ballina store in 2007 The supermarket has won 40 different awards since it opened.

Ritchies CEO Fred Harrison said the award recognised Ritchies rigorous retail standards appraisal, based on several unannounced shop visits over the course of a year by jurists who created an overall score for each store.

A Community Benefit Card is free to all Ritchies shoppers and automatically donates 1 per cent of the total sales each time a person shops at one of its 54 supermarkets and liquor stores.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 11:45 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.