The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Super Value’s owner yesterday blamed the struggling Bahamian economy for its failure to hit a 5 per cent sales growth target “no matter how hard we try”.

Rupert Roberts told Tribune Business that the supermarket chain was “not realising our projected goals”, and was around 2-2.5 percentage points behind target year-to-date.

Anticipating the traditional summer slowdown, as residents went on vacation and stopover tourist arrivals reduced, Mr Roberts said the 10-store chain, and its three Quality Supermarkets stores, had benefited from a 37 per cent drop in energy costs.

This, though, was now being offset by Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) supply reliability issues, which were knocking out and burning through electrical equipment in the company’s warehouse and stores.

Branding BPL’s new manager as ‘Power Unsure’, a play on PowerSecure, Mr Roberts expressed disappointment in its performance to-date, adding that he thought load shedding was “a thing of the past.”

“The economy’s slow and it’s going to probably be a slow summer,” the Super Value president told Tribune Business. “We don’t see anything on the horizon to hang our hats on to say there may be some better days ahead.

“I think the economy will slow more and more as we get into the summer. That’s an annual thing. We’re not realising our projected goals, and are falling a little behind.”

Mr Roberts said that Super Value was fortunate in that food and drink, its core business, was an essential or ‘necessity’ commodity, adding that smaller food stores were feeling the moribund economy’s impact more.

“We had a goal of a 5 per cent sales increase and we’re not getting it, and we’re not getting it,” he told Tribune Business. “No matter how hard we try, we’re not getting it.

“There’s so much unemployment and consumers don’t have the money. The ones that have it are helping out other family members.

“We’re off 2-2.5 percent [from target]. If we take VAT into consideration, we’d be getting a 10 per cent increase in sales if that was not there. It’s going to be a long, hot summer. It seems to be gradually slowing down.”

New Providence has been plagued by energy supply woes in recent weeks, with BPL initiating a rolling, two-hour load-shedding that was followed by an island-wide power outage on Friday.

Mr Roberts said Super Value had “a handle on every eventuality”, with every store possessing its own generator. The larger outlets, he added, have two, while two mobile generators are kept on constant stand-by.

“The common joke now is Power Unsure,” the Super Value chief told Tribune Business. “What we find happening with the power outages is that the fluctuations last week took out 40 bulbs in the warehouse, and burnt out the main AC blower/fan in one of the stores.

“I’m going to try it on with Power Unsure and bill them for it.”

Still, as a major energy consumer, Mr Roberts said Super Value had benefited from a reduction in one of its largest two cost lines as a result of the drop in global oil prices.

“I was expecting to get it down to $350,000 from $750,000 [per month], with the price of oil down and the energy-saving technology we’ve been using,” he added.

“But then I’m hearing about a rate rise. That’s what we expected to get it down to. We were working with Leslie Miller [former chairman] and BEC, and hoping to get a set price for fuel, as that was what it was going to come down to. That’s quite a saving - from $750,000 to $350,000.”

Super Value, like other Bahamas-based businesses and households, has reaped the benefits of lower global oil prices.

Mr Roberts said that for a typical “period” in Super Value’s accounting records, energy costs had dropped from $310,000 in 2015 to $195,000 - a 37 per cent saving.

Up to its “eighth period” this year, the supermarket chain has seen energy costs fall from $3.257 million to $1.967 million year-over-year - a near 40 per cent fall.

“I expect the power outages but it’s the fluctuations that hurt us,” Mr Roberts said. “We’re well prepared to take care of ourselves and generate our own power, but it’s going to burn up our motors and electrical equipment and so forth.

“We have $250,000 of perishables in each store. We can’t take a 10 degree fluctuation in temperature..... I was very disappointed because I thought PowerSecure had things under control, and very upset to see the load shedding return. I thought that was a thing of the past.”