Chris Hood, Director, Hoop Ltd..

How long have you been in business?

We’ve been operating since 2004 and are one of the only third party agencies in New Zealand that brings promotional activity to life. We’re also the largest POS logistics provider to the FMCG industry.

We started Hoop because we realised that nobody was providing a comprehensive brand activation or co-packing service to leading retailers.

While we’ve had a lot of success with these services for over a decade, we’ve expanded our suite of services by establishing New Zealand’s most advanced co-packing solution to support local businesses to deliver shelf-ready products.

How are you finding current business conditions?

Covid-19 brought about many obstacles that we never could have foreseen. We had to delay the launch of our new co-packing service, and 95% of our weekly work was put on hold due to all the lockdowns last year.

Luckily, the business has bounced back to be in pretty good shape, our co-packing service is now live and operational, our merchandising service work has returned to pre-COVID levels and our POS logistics is up and running again.

What are the issues facing the country’s supply chain currently?

This issue has affected us more than we had first anticipated given we do not import any products ourselves.

However, a large portion of our clients are fully reliant on offshore supply chain and as such, a lot of our forecasted work for the first quarter in 2021 had been postponed due to shipping issues.

The workload will still come but we cannot recoup our costs that were accrued during that quarter and then when it does come, we then face the challenge of scheduling the delayed work in with our existing scheduled tasks.

How difficult is it to improve these issues?

It’s all about the communication we have with our clients in managing their expectations around the timing of their executions. We are finding that if you are up front with them on the issues you are experiencing (which can occur through no fault of your own) than they are more receptive to working with our timelines.

Is Hoop nationwide? If not where do you want to expand your reach?

Our Hoop brand activators are nationwide but our main operations are in Auckland. We have recently acquired the New Zealand based assets of Australian co-packing company LJM, so we’re focusing on the local market for now.

However, our future plans include building partnerships with like-minded companies in Australia to start working on some Trans-Tasman opportunities.

How big is your team?

We have a national field team of nearly 400 people across our brand activation and co-packing teams who are scattered around the country. Our brand activators provide retail promotion set up services and our co-packers help to reconfigure brand packaging to suit New Zealand’s packaging preferences.

We also provide brand owners Point of sales logistics, which combines all these services – essentially  brand owners can use us as a one stop solution.

Is it a challenge finding the correct staff?

Absolutely, this applies to all areas of our business. One of the biggest challenges we face is securing Brand Activators to service our supermarket night filling positions throughout the country.

We have a dedicated recruitment and HR team who are working harder than ever to fill those key positions.

One of the key challenges we face with our head office team is not only trying to secure resource that is capable of performing the role, but finding people that also fit into our culture.

We pride ourselves on our great team culture that supports our company ethics and leading service and communication levels.

What would make business easier?

Communication is absolutely key to a successful partnership with our clients, technology will help deliver not only the communication flow, but also accountability. Hoop is constantly investing in technology to provide that transparency across all forms of communication.

The information flow that transpires through our network is huge, from receiving on time and accurate briefings from our clients, to briefing our nearly 400 strong Brand Activators team, to their reporting outcomes that form our compliance reporting back to our clients.

To add to this, we have to also manage the logistics flow of all promotional material to ensure it’s delivered on time to our Brand Activators and stores.