WORDS BY ANITA BODY, IMAGES BY INDIANA ROBERTS
Ruralco’s Rakaia store has a prime location according to locals. It’s just far enough off State Highway 1 to be seen, but is still easily accessible, and is often “on the way” for locals according to long serving Store Manager, Maree Smith.
“I’ve heard time and time again that we are in a good place,” she says. Rakaia serves a wide area, from Te Pirita and Bankside, through to Leeston and Southbridge. And for Mid Cantabrians heading home from Christchurch, the Rakaia store is the perfect place to pick up supplies—especially if they are racing the clock to get to their usual Methven or Ashburton Ruralco store.
The store stocks the same wide array of farm supplies, clothing, footwear, gifts, and homewares you find at all of Ruralco’s stores, but the team still get some interesting requests. Maree says with no hardware store in the township, they’ve had requests for tools, tap washers, camping gas bottles, and they’ve even had a dairy farmer looking for milk.
“Ruralco often ends up being the place where people come looking for whatever they need.”
That can probably be attributed to the store’s longevity and standing in the community. Ruralco has had a store in the town since 2001 when it took over the old Burrowes Jam Factory building, with Raewyn Maw (formerly Kingan) the store’s first manager. Maree started with the store in 2004 when Raewyn went on maternity leave, and she’s been there ever since.
She and her husband Warren were local shearing contractors and she had worked at the local hotel for 14 years prior to joining Ruralco. Add to that, being an active member of community and school groups, Maree was already well known in the community.
Within a few years it was clear the store had outgrown its original premises, and the sale of the house on the adjoining property provided the perfect opportunity for Ruralco to investigate building its own purpose-built store.
“The house went to auction, we bought it, moved the old house off site, and then set about planning the new store,” Maree says. It was a bit of a lengthy process developing and building, with snow holding up progress, but the new store was finally opened in 2008.
“My family (Warren and their two children) helped nail up the board for all of the ear tags.”
For many years the board was Allflex’s largest tag board in the world. Maree jokes it could have been called the Smith Family Board, “we all had a bit of an input.”
One of the other store features which has proved to be extremely popular is the retail drive through. Maree says it’s not just an inwards goods drive through like the one in Ashburton, and customers really like the convenience it offers. “It gets used every day.”
It’s not just the store’s facilities that contribute to the store’s success; it’s also the retail team.
“We all have our areas of expertise and when we don’t know, we will ask other members of the Ruralco team at our other stores.”
Maree comes from a sheep and beef farming background, and combined with her shearing knowledge has a good grounding in general farming needs. Bex Glass came to the store nine years ago after working for Goldpine, so has great fencing knowledge, along with strengths in animal health and equine care; while Julianne Fuller has been with the store almost three years, coming from a similar farm supplies role and with extensive dairy experience and expertise.
“Our girl team is a really good fit. We love what we do, and we love our customers, with many of them becoming friends over the years,” says Maree.
It’s a sentiment shared by local shareholder, Paul Stewart. “The staff are amazing. Maree and her team are fantastic at what they do. If they haven’t got something, they will get it in for you.” The Stewart family have a long history with Ruralco. Paul’s grandfather was one of the original shareholders. The arrival of the Rakaia store was welcomed by the family because it offered choice and competition in the town at that time, and for its convenience. “It’s only 10 minutes down the road for us—if you’re in a hurry it is very handy.”