20 years of success for Ruth’s Urru store

RUTH Healy, owner of Urru Culinary Store in Bandon, recently celebrated 20 years in business. That’s a generation, and in that time Ruth has literally been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt many times over.

To say that she is a shopkeeper is like saying pilots sit in a cockpit all day. Ruth’s role for the past two decades has actually been about connection, an all important link in the chain between food or drink producer and customer.

Today, there’s a shop like Urru in almost every market town up and down the country. But back in 2003, that simply wasn’t the case, and it is a good starting point for illustrating the change Ruth has seen in Ireland’s food story.

Without the kind of shop she created, many hard-working producers may never have lasted the pace.

Shopkeeping is in her blood, and, in a way, it was maybe destiny that Urru would one day exist.

“My dad was a wholesaler and his parents were shopkeepers in the Mardyke, but my grandmother was the driving force; she was the boss,” said Ruth.

“She had her own shop down in Paradise Place, a kind of dry goods and wine shop. Glamourous it was not; cheap wine wrapped up in brown paper.”

The main grocer’s shop in the city sold a bit of everything, and Ruth distinctly remembers her grandfather giving food to some school children that came into the shop.

“They weren’t being fed,” said Ruth, “so he gave them leftover cake, bread and butter. My grandmother was like that too; things would be sent down to someone’s house, and my dad would be told to drop that in.”

Ruth grew up in Waterfall and went to school in Cork city. She left school for Dublin to study a degree in Japanese and International Marketing before returning to Cork to study a postgrad in strategy and management.

Her first foray in her professional career was with Proctor and Gamble and assignments took her all over the country and abroad. The Oil of Olay account was hers, and Ruth triumphantly recalls being responsible for that brand being selected as the first ever sash sponsor of The Rose of Tralee.

But she couldn’t settle and eventually returned to Cork, left her corporate job and signed up for the 12-week cookery course at Ballymaloe in 2001, with the intention of opening some sort of shop after graduating.

Her fellow alumna included famed chef, author and Wahaca restaurateur Thomasina Myers, culinary editor Lizzie Mar, and Peadar Moynihan of The Long Valley.

“When I look back at school photos, there was always some reference, things like ‘Ruth, the next Ben Dunne,’ and I was even the manager of the school shop.”

Ruth eventually opened Urru, a shop that was a far cry from the workaday grocery stores of her grandparents’ generation.

“I always loved food, and to me it was glaringly obvious you could sell food differently.

“Different foods weren’t easily available then, and it wasn’t because people didn’t want to buy that kind of stuff, just that they didn’t know it existed.

“So this shop was quite novel 20 years ago.”

Shops like Urru must offer a point of difference in order to thrive.

“Take any given item of food, like biscuits. Technically, people can get those in different places at different prices, so why would they ever pay a different price if they know where the lowest is?

“It’s because shopping is a lot more than people just picking up things, and that’s the world I inhabit. Not just creating access to items, but creating other reasons for coming in.”

Those other reasons can be a connection, a feeling of community and a place to be social. It can also be a place where stories are shared, because Ruth doesn’t just stock her shelves with goods, she’s stocking them with stories of the person who made an item, how they made it, why they make it, why it’s delicious, and how it’s going to make a difference to what you’ll eat tonight.

As a location, Bandon fitted Ruth’s wish list for a bustling market town with a deep-rooted connection to food and heritage.

As she puts it, in a town like Bandon, people still cook most days because it’s a place on the cusp of where everything is produced and lived - a true sense of embeddedness.

A generational business like Urru will always see its fair share of seismic shifts and challenges, many of which are outside any kind of rational control.

“I opened on the cusp of the Celtic Tiger, so of course I thought that was normality,” said Ruth.

“Then recession came, then flood came. By the time the remedial works started, drilling the river and roadworks, I had cottoned on that this is normality.”

“I got really good advice years ago, that if you have to make a decision, make it when you’re in the driving seat. I opened a shop in Mallow in 2006 and I closed it in 2008, but I did that before the recession really kicked in. So, while it was hard and difficult and cost money, it was nothing like it would have been if I had held on longer.”

“I realised that there’s always something. I have made my bed here and I’ve cut my cloth. It’s maybe not always ideal, but it’s fine and I’m here to tell the story.”

As well as adapting to the challenges of her own business, as someone who trades with other small food and drink businesses, Ruth has been privy to watching some incredible journeys for those that go on to achieve recognition, status, and a loyal following of consumers.

“I remember when Green Saffron first started out. I thought it sounded very interesting but wondered how they were going to make a business out of it.”

“Clearly, they have and have done it really well. Often, with time, we forget when someone is doing something new and what it takes to get that traction.”

Ruth added: “I think Glenilen is a great example of achieving commercial success and doing everything to try and hang onto the essence of what they’re about.

“Someone like Philip O’Connor of Seymours Irish Biscuits has also been a really been a great example of having a good idea, doing it well, putting the graft in, and reward will come.”

“The bread sector has also changed hugely in the last 20 years,” said Ruth. “At the time, Arbutus Bread were really the only show in town in terms of sourdough and spelt bread. Now of course they have become a neighbourhood name.

“But bread is a really hard gig, bordering on vocational, because it has such a lifestyle component to it, and it is very hard to make sustainable money from something that takes so much labour.”

So what is next for Urru? What will the next two decades look, and taste, like?

“I’ve come to accept that the way I’ve shaped things means I’m not going to be taking over the world!” replied Ruth.

“Anthony Creswell [Ummera Smokehouse] said you can grow by getting bigger or by getting better, so I’m trying to get better.

“It’ll never be the finished article, and in doing a bit of self-reflection, I came up with a way to describe myself which is that I’m probably a bit of a marmite. I certainly never intended the business to be all things to all people and most of the time I’m happy that I’ve trusted my judgement.

“But I enjoy being here, I enjoy what’s here, I work hard but that’s OK. I’ve learned that if you want to do something enough, you’ll find a way to do it.”

“I know I won’t be here in 20 years’ time. Whether Urru will be, I don’t know. I hope so, but I am thinking about what does succession look like to me?

“Maybe succession isn’t just about the flogging off of a business, or maybe it is. But that said, there’s life in the old dog yet!”

With so much experience tucked under the belt, Ruth says there are many moments and life lessons that stand out for her.

“I’d love to see more people embrace the idea that not everywhere has to be the same or have the same offering. There should be diversity and variety,” she explained.

“I’m delighted if I don’t have something but I can direct people to any of my neighbouring businesses. That’s a good thing, and they do the same back.

“I have shaped Urru into a way that works for me, but I’m not sure if it’s an example to others of what to do or of what not to do.

“So I’ve learned that there is no one-size-fits- all, there is no perfect, correct or wrong model. There’s only, in this case, the model that I’ve shaped. This is Urru.”

www.urru.ie