GPS Business Solutions

Food for thought, and for growth

Peter Chapman knows food and how to sell it. After 19 years with Canada’s largest food retailer, Loblaw’s, Chapman decided to strike out on his own and founded GPS Business Solutions to help farmers, fishermen, and food processors navigate their way into the retail food market.
 
Food is what Chapman knows best but he says no matter what you produce, you must let go of the myth that the consumer is your customer. While it is true that the consumer will ultimately buy your product, if you’re trying to sell it in major retail stores, the real customer is the retailer.
 
 “I help producers understand what the retailer’s looking for and then also put the package together that they can take to the retailer and get their products listed.”
 
Chapman said he also works with producers who already have their products in the big retail stores to find ways to increase their sales.
 
Another myth Chapman dispels is that the current “buy local” trend will convince retailers to carry their product.
 
“Buy local is great. But really producers shouldn’t depend on that as the only reason the retailer is going to buy their product. They should want to buy their product because what we can offer is competitive with what’s available anywhere else.”
 
As Chapman recently told the Atlantic Poultry Conference in Greenwich, Nova Scotia, retailers are looking for three things:
- Safety – the producer must be able to provide a consistently safe product.
- Quality - the product has to look and taste good and stay fresh for as long as possible.
- Convenience – more and more consumers are looking for products they can eat on the run.
 
Not only does Chapman know the retail food industry, he has a contact in Toronto who can meet with all the major retailers on his behalf. When Loblaw’s centralized its offices in Toronto, Chapman and his family decided big city life wasn’t for them.
 
There was the law practice his wife would have to give up. But there were quality of life issues as well.
 
“I always think, when I’m driving around Atlantic Canada to different clients, that sometimes people drive 20 hours to get to see what we get to see every day.”
 
He also believes Nova Scotia offers wonderful opportunities for his children to learn and play here.
 
“We’ve got some great post-secondary opportunities for them no matter which path they decide to go down.” Chapman said. But that’s in the future. His oldest son is eight and goes to a French-immersion school. “He loves almost every minute of it.”
 
In his son’s spare time, Chapman says he plays hockey and baseball, activities, he says, that can cost up to four times what Nova Scotians pay in other parts of Canada. “So I think Nova Scotia’s a great place to grow up.”
 
Great for families but also a great place to do business.
 
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities for people in this part of the world,” Chapman says, adding “as long as you’re fulfilling the needs of your customers, you can choose to live and work where you want to.”
 
“Within Nova Scotia there’s a fantastic community of people who have their own businesses who are able to help people. One of the things that I can do is bring some of those people together. If the clients that I work with are looking to do some package design or labels or even on the advertising side of things, there’s a whole community of people out there working who can do it very well and very cost-effectively. I think one of the things about working here is we do offer people the full service. It’s not just one little specific part of the equation. We can fulfill all their needs.”
 
Sure there are more offices and more decision-makers in Toronto than in Nova Scotia, but Chapman says all you need to work with them is a good relationship and some basic Internet know-how.  “They don’t want you in their face all the time anyway.”
 
In fact, computer technology is one of the things Chapman advises his clients about. He says everyone should be taking advantage of high-speed Internet communication because that is the way business is done today. For Nova Scotians, that’s not hard. By the end of 2009, the whole province will have access to high-speed Internet.
 
Chapman says that major retailers expect to be able to do business over the Internet so he advises his clients to take full advantage of their Internet connections as soon as they become available.
 
While the Internet allows Chapman to work anywhere, he says the fact that he has stayed in Nova Scotia is an advantage for both the major retailers and producers.
 
The retailers have someone local who sends business their way and the food producers appreciate being able to deal with somebody who understands the market here.
 
“The face-to-face work is important for those people,” Chapman says. “They understand that I understand the challenges that they face.”
 
In addition to helping individual clients, Chapman speaks at industry functions such as the Atlantic Poultry Conference. There, he can offer a large group of producers advice on how best to get their products into the large retail stores and keep them there.
 
If producers are interested in what they hear, they can hire Chapman to help them put his advice into practice in a way that will work specifically for them.
 
Chapman has taken his lengthy experience in the food industry and turned it to his advantage so that he can still do the work he loves and live where he chooses.
 
As far as he knows, GPS Business Solutions is the only company of its kind anywhere. He’s working that uniqueness to his advantage as well. While so far his clients sell their produce in Canada, he’s got his eye on getting them into the Northeastern United States market – all from his home-office in Bedford, Nova Scotia.