Having overseen the growth of Benugo into a £100m-a-year business, Shane Kavanagh now has his sights set on the healthy eating-out market and its longtime darling, Crussh. He talks to Mel Flaherty about diversification into new channels, its concept store and the inevitable market consolidation
“Part accountant, part strategist, part barista, part carpenter” is how Shane Kavanagh describes his newish job as chief executive of Crussh, the 27-strong and growing juice and smoothie-based healthy eating chain. Happily, multitasking is something he thrives on.
The Irish son of a publican honed his job juggling skills early on, opening and running the second unit for Coffee#1 between his law degree lectures at Cardiff University.
That lesson clearly turned out to be more useful to him than his legal seminars, although, he jokes: “My mum keeps asking when I am going to get a proper job.”
Speaking in a West Country-sounding accent borne from his Irish roots via a childhood that also took in Canada, Gloucester and Wales, Kavanagh sounds very content with the way his career has gone. He gained a wealth of much-enjoyed experience in his most recent 12-plus years at Benugo, latterly as managing director, and is now beyond excited about the opportunities his latest role, which he took up in April this year, has to offer. The growing public appetite for healthy eating and his own long-term personal interest in this area (strengthened when he became a father himself two years ago, and for a second time just a couple of months ago), convinced him the time was right to move.
“When I joined Benugo I hadn’t really heard of it and it had five sites. When I left it was operating in many business channels and turnover had reached £100m. Crussh started at the same time as Benugo and now turns over about £15m with 27 stores in one business channel,” he says.
Green credentials
Diplomatic in a very genuine way, Kavanagh stresses he was by no means solely responsible for Benugo’s success and is full of praise, too, for Crussh. He has long been a fan of the latter’s product, culture and service – when he started at Benugo, team meetings used to be held at the Crussh in Curzon Street. Kavanagh also points out that the brand’s longevity is rare in the juice sector and believes its steady, site-by-site organic growth has given it a very solid foundation to build on. There is much loyalty among the existing customers, who spend an average of £5 per head, but Kavanagh thinks the brand is still too much of a well-kept secret. Design, marketing and positioning are where he feels he can most help Crussh reach the potential he fervently believes it has.
“The great thing about Crussh, historically, is it has done lots of things well and very successfully without really trying.
“The brand proposition was at the leading edge of innovation for healthy food, but the market has caught up with the likes of Leon and now even Prêt with Veggie Prêt,” he explains.
He is full of plans to address this. At the smaller end of the scale, the business has already boosted the previously slipping green juices category with a multi-channel campaign featuring the tagline ‘Drink Your Greens’ communicated via table cards, staff T-shirts and posters. Green juice sales have gone up 3% as a result so far. Also, the autumn menu is about to be launched (the chain works off five seasons, adding ‘Detox’ in January to the standard four) and will feature turmeric and iron corn, an ancient grain.
The health-giving properties of both of these ingredients have recently come to light and Kavanagh thinks it is Crussh’s place to bring non-faddy, genuinely beneficial foods to the mass market while fulfilling its brand promise to produce ‘Fit Food’ that is ‘healthier, tastier, easier’.
Evolution of concept
At the other end of the spectrum, the
company is spending between £300,000 and £400,000 on a new concept store in New Street Square, behind Chancery Lane in the City of London, which should open later this year.
Kavanagh joined Crussh at the end of a rebranding programme that took well over three years, but says it is now time to reposition again in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary manner. It is too soon to give much away, but he does say the space
will be designed to be conducive to longer dwell times, with good Wi-Fi and power points available.
In addition, the palette will be a much lighter green; more consideration given to the ergonomics of the design (lower counters will be more akin to a bar than a retail till area); more prominence given to the fresh produce and a big focus on enabling staff to prepare and serve fresh food and drinks as efficiently as possible.
He describes the process as ‘part science, part art’ and has some form in this kind of thing. Pre-Coffee#1, Kavanagh was involved in bar development at Ha! Ha! Bar and Canteen (where he met his wife), and after he was GM of bSb, a large restaurant and cocktail bar in Cardiff city centre. That early first-hand experience also came into play at Benugo where the firm took on the Natural History Museum’s café business and grew turnover from £2m a year to £5m, largely by improving the way it handled volume.
Communication will also play a large role in Crussh’s development – Kavanagh says not only does there need to be more clarity with signage, but more flexibility in the way the brand interacts with customers using technology.
Delivering the goods
Crussh has very recently started using Deliveroo, as Kavanagh feels there is scope to grow the delivery side of the business, which currently accounts for around 10% of sales. The company is also about to launch an online ordering service and is in talks about development of an app that, from the way Kavanagh is talking, may involve mobile payments, click and collect and loyalty rewards.
In terms of sites, Kavanagh says the Canary Wharf store will undergo a refit and then there are “significant opportunities” to grow in London. Currently, much of the portfolio is in City locations operating five days a week, but Kavanagh believes the brand, which is already proven in formats ranging from 300 to 2,000sq feet (weekly turnover ranges from £8,000 to £40,000), could fly in seven days a week West End locations. He is confident Crussh would also work well nationally and says this is something he plans to test next year.
Kavanagh adds that there is great potential to “stretch the brand” too, by drawing on his experiences at Benugo and taking Crussh into workplaces, concessions, plus retail and travel environments. He is in “early conversations with some potential partners” about all these things and is fascinated and motivated by the opportunities thrown up by the increasingly blurry distinctions between different aspects of retail and eating out.
Strong board
There is no war chest as such, but Kavanagh says all sites are profitable and the business is well funded with backing from Barclays and, as of March last year, from Hattington Investment Partners. Kavanagh says the private equity firm not only offers pressure-free long-term support but also a valuable board member, Barney Burgess, the former commercial director of Tesco.
In fact, the senior team at Crussh is ideally placed for growth – ex-UK managing director of Caffè Nero, Jonathan Hart, is chair and those in all the top posts have impressive CVs spanning companies from Nando’s to EAT and Côté.
Like everyone, Kavanagh senses uncertainty following the Brexit vote (although Crussh’s Millbank branch did booming business on the day itself as many TV interviews were conducted in the adjoining atrium), but says other people’s hesitancy combined with Crussh’s readiness for growth could be an advantage when negotiating property deals.
Kavanagh also recognises that the healthy eating-out space is becoming quite crowded and believes there will be consolidation in the coming years. Of course no one can say yet where exactly Crussh will come out as a result of all that, but as far as Kavanagh is concerned, it is all positive. And he is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and do all he can to ensure it continues that way.
■ Mel Flaherty is a freelance journalist
specialising in the hospitality sector
