Paul Rencken is the 2010 Mr Spar KZN. Nicola Jenvey discovered that doesn’t mean he has the brawn without the brains.
Paul has Spar so wholly entrenched in his psyche, it would be hard for him to imagine a time without the retail brand in his life.
His father Richard and uncle Udo established the Rencken’s Spar Mandeni in the early 1960s and, alongside his brother Bruce, Paul grew up in the store packing shelves and generally being another pair of hands. After finishing school and completing his two-year conscription, he still did not know what direction his professional life should take – so worked for two years in the store, spent a year overseas and then repeated the whole process.
Only thereafter did he realise his forte and began his professional life in the Rencken’s Spar bakery section, despite not knowing how to bake. It was thus training from the ground upwards in a business that by then also included the Stanger and Wartburg Spars.
In the late-1990s Paul and Bruce took over the Stanger and Wartburg operations, while their cousins retained the Mandeni operations as the next generation of Renckens assumed the reins for developing the Spar brand.
Spar entered the South African landscape in 1963 when eight wholesalers were given the exclusive rights to the name to service 500 small retailers. Spar operates under a voluntary trading principle meaning that while the group encourages its retailers to take advantage of the its trading power, the individual Spar store owners are entitled to source goods from local traders.
Consequently, each store has its own regional personality and the group currently operates with six distribution centres to supply goods and services to almost 800 Spar stores countrywide.
Paul and Bruce acquired the Stanger centre in which was sited a bottle store and converted that facility into a Tops at Spar branded outlet. After buying the Ballito Spar, they saw the opportunity for building the Lifestyle Centre and SuperSpar on the hill overlooking Ballito, thus taking their Spar holdings to seven stores across the Spar and Tops at Spar brands.
The Lifestyle centre opened in September 2003 with three consequent phases following swiftly over the next four years and the development itself has garnered a host of national retailing awards by the South African Council of Shopping Centres.
So what is the Mr Spar KZN award?
Essentially, it is the highest accolade Spar regionally can present one of its voluntary trading partners (store holders) with only the Mr Spar South Africa coming in as a higher honour. Given the Spar business model, the award recognises those individuals who drive the brand – putting Spar above the call of the individual store.
Paul has already won the national Store of the Year Award for the Lifestyle SuperSpar, Ballito Spar and Mandeni (when his side of the family were still involved). As a flagship outlet, the Lifestyle SuperSpar is constantly used as a “look-and-learn” facility with Paul willingly sharing his ideas and experience with new up-and-coming retailers within the Spar family.
“Over the years, I have spent many hours unselfishly driving the Spar brand and in receiving this award, it is rewarding to be recognised for that commitment. The bottom line is that there is little to be achieved in selfish behaviour without understanding that decisions need to be made for the good of the brand and not the individual,” he says.
When not displaying his personal brand of enthusiasm within his business, Paul can be found spending quality time with his wife Le-anne and their three children, Kayla (6), Ethan (4) and Callum (18 months). He can also be found near bodies of water with a fishing rod in his hand and good friends for company.