The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor AML Foods is targeting an annual $12-$15 million top-line boost by the third year of its proposed Solomon's "sister store" in Freeport, its chief executive telling Tribune Business yesterday he "didn't doubt" the lease for it would be signed within two weeks. Gavin Watchorn, who is also the BISX-listed food retail group's president, in confirming to Tribune Business that the company was in negotiations with the late Sir Milo Butler's family to lease the former 31,000 square foot City Markets outlet at Lucaya, said the site would enable it to cover Freeport with stores. "We don't have a lease signed yet," Mr Watchorn said. "We're working on the lease to get the location..... I don't doubt that we will get a lease in place. If we're going to do a lease, it will be signed off in the next two weeks." Confirming that the move, if successful, will create around 50 jobs in a Freeport economy that desperately needs all the employment it can get, given a 21 per cent unemployment rate, Mr Watchorn said the Lucaya site would function as "a sister store" to AML Foods' existing Solomon's SuperCentre site on the Queen's Highway. "It's going to be a sister store to what we have there already," Mr Watchorn told Tribune Business. "It will have some product elements of what we have down here [New Providence] with Solomon's Fresh Market, but predominantly it will be a sister store to Queen's Highway. "It will be a sister store in terms of product options and marketing. We're going to create a sister location under one brand, and it will provide us with a certain amount of synergies in one market." The AML Foods chief declined to give a figure for the BISX-listed food group's likely investment in the Lucaya store, given that the lease was not yet signed, but confirmed that "we will probably gut the store, to be honest". Aiming to re-brand the former City Markets store as a Solomon's, Mr Watchorn said its planned opening by summer would not significantly "cannibalise" sales at its two existing Freeport stores, which also include the Cost Right format, in what is already a crowded food retailing market in the Bahamas' second city. "We think there will be a small cannibalisation, but nothing we would be overly concerned with," he told Tribune Business. Asked about financial projections for the proposed Solomon's outlet, Mr Watchorn replied its top-line sales contribution would "add between $12-$15 million per year, probably getting to that level by year three". That would effectively match initial targets set for the Solomon's Fresh Market store on New Providence, and together the two new additions would easily propel AML Foods above the per annum $100 million sales mark. Mr Watchorn had recently indicated AML Foods' focus would be on its Solomon's Fresh Market outlet, and 'bedding' that in, placing the proposed Lucaya store seemingly at odds with that strategy. When questioned by Tribune Business about this, Mr Watchorn replied that the BISX-listed food group was focused on "opportunity", and leveraging its sound financial position into expansion opportunities that fitted in with long-term growth plans. "While we are busy, we have to look at opportunities," he explained. "Lots of opportunities have come our way over the last 12-24 months, and while they may not be bad, not all are opportunities for us. "Whatever opportunities come up, we have to look at them seriously, see how they grow the company and if it fits in with the right strategy. We try to seize the opportunity." Explaining why AML Foods targeted the Lucaya area, Mr Watchorn said: "There's not a food store in that area of Grand Bahama. It can fill a niche. In terms of store locations, we will have one in the west, one in the east, and one in the centre of Freeport. "It allows us to cater to that end of the market; there are lots of tourists down there, condos and timeshares, as well as a large local market. We would have it open by summer." In a recent interview, Mr Watchorn said the company remained "open" to expanding the Solomon's Fresh Market concept elsewhere in the Bahamas, hinting that New Providence probably had room for one more outlet - likely out east. However, the company was more focused on getting the Old Fort Bay Town Centre location to 100 per cent operational capacity. "We've just opened this and want to bed it in, and I don't think you jump into something like this straight away," Mr Watchorn told Tribune Business. "But if an opportunity arises, and it would really work well for is, yes, sure we would explore it."