Gilmours had a successful FY24, with the opening of our new distribution site in Hawke’s Bay, the implementation of our warehouse management system in two stores, and major growth across multiple categories.

Despite supply challenges and the cost-of-living challenges impacting customers and their businesses, we continued to deliver the value, service and the range they expect.

Our key highlights from FY24 included:

• Opening a new Hawke’s Bay distribution site in November 2023, our first new site in eight years, enabling us to increase our service levels for delivery orders to the region.
• Rolling out our warehouse management system (WMS) in Hawke’s Bay and Mount Roskill. WMS delivers real-time stock visibility and traceability, improving the end-to-end customer experience and enabling increased efficiencies in store.
• Expanding our national portfolio, serving customers from Cape Reinga to Invercargill, seeing growth in aged care and accommodation.
• Winning Retailworld’s Retail Employer of the Year (medium-sized) for the third year in a row, which formally acknowledges that Gilmours is an excellent place to work.
• We improved the customer experience on our website, to be more personalised and targeted by serving up relevant content for our key trade types.
• We invested in new customer ordering tools, to improve the customer experience and reduce their admin, so they can focus on what matters to them.

Distribution Centre in Hawke’s Bay

We continued to see strong growth in the fresh food category with our two fresh-focused campaigns delivering strong Foodservice growth: our new ‘Seafood Smash’ campaign, and annual ‘Meat Madness’.

Behind the scenes, a shift in focus for our customer services teams from admin to sales support, saw increased customer reach and is now generating benefits for both stores and customers.

Our attendance at the Fine Food Show in Auckland in June 2023 let team members from our Support Centre and Auckland and Hamilton stores connect face-to-face with suppliers and customers.