- Story by Tess van Straaten Photography by Don Denton
Story courtesy of , a Black Press Media publication
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Not many people can say theyâre the big cheese. But Nanaimoâs Eric McLean sure can and he has the T-shirt to prove it.
âPeople get a good chuckle out of it and it helps me stand out,â laughs Eric, who started McLeanâs Specialty Foods 27 years ago.
The Glasgow native was even inducted into the Guilde des Fromagers, or âcheese hall of fame,â five years ago. And his passion for good food is contagious.
âItâs like one of my customers said the other day â lifeâs too short to eat bad cheese,â Eric says.
The idea for the specialty foods store, located in Nanaimoâs Old City Quarter, was actually the result of Eric and his wife, Sandy, being unable to find ingredients like extra virgin olive oil, prosciutto and good cheese when they moved to the Harbour City almost three decades ago.
âWhen we moved here from Vancouver 28 years ago there was nothing,â explains Eric. âWe just realized there was a big hole in the market. Itâs hard to believe, but before I opened the store in 1992 you couldnât even buy balsamic vinegar and nobody knew what San Pellegrino was.â
For Eric, whoâd worked in the food industry since immigrating to Canada in 1980, opening the store âhad to be doneâ and he says many of his first customers had also recently moved to Nanaimo from larger cities like Vancouver and Toronto.
âLike us, theyâd moved here and couldnât find what they were used to buying,â he says. âI promoted the store at first as a place to get hard-to-find ingredients.â
With around 150 different kinds of cheese â one of the largest selections on Vancouver Island â as well as gourmet oils, vinegars, truffles, pĂątĂ©s, a delicatessen and wide assortment of Danish, British, European and South African specialty items, McLeanâs has attracted a loyal following over the years and a surprising number of new customers.
âEvery single day for the past 20-plus years, weâve had at least one person, and usually several, say: âOh this is great, weâve never been here beforeâ or âFriends told us about this place, we just moved here,ââ Eric says. âEvery single day, without a lie, so can you imagine what that does for our confidence. Weâre doing something right and the positive reinforcement has been phenomenal.â
But running a small business isnât easy. In the beginning, sourcing the products was the biggest challenge. However, now the challenge is competing with grocery and big box stores that have big buying power and are now carrying more specialty items.
âIn the last three-to-five years, supermarkets have suddenly discovered things like balsamic vinegar and prosciutto,â explains Eric. âThe biggest challenge is supermarkets have realized specialty foods are part of a growing market. But their main motivation is price and they canât tell you what to do with the product.â
While Eric says he usually canât compete on price, he can offer something chain stores canât â specialized service and extensive product knowledge.
âWe can spend time with the customer and tell them what to do with the product, share recipes and share our experiences using it. And that has given us the edge,â Eric says. âI teach my staff to get to know our customers and to treat them like theyâre important, because they are. I may sign their paycheque but I donât pay them. I tell staff to always remember the customer pays them.â
Eric says the most important lesson heâs learned in running the business has been to trust his instincts. But the best advice came decades ago, when he was still in Scotland and training in sales, from a man who would become his mentor.
âHis name was George Burrows and he told me never, ever bullshit the customer because it will come back to haunt you,â Eric says. âWe were in a shop one time calling on a good customer heâd had for a good number of years, and the owner was going to order this and that [from us] and George told him not to order it because it wasnât a good fit for the store. I asked George what the heck he was doing because I thought we needed every sale we could get, and he told me that if he goes back next month and itâs still sitting there on the shelf, the customer isnât going to be happy. âHeâs going to be really pissed off if I sold him something for the sake of selling something.ââ
The conversation has definitely stuck with Eric, whose other passion is music. Heâs been playing guitar since he was 13 years old, including a stint professionally, and is one of the co-founders of the Nanaimo Blues Festival. His other claim to fame is launching Mottâs Clamato on Vancouver Island when he worked for Cadbury-Schweppes years ago.
âI learned an awful lot about product margins, how to merchandise product and how you can increase sales by moving product and repositioning it â because the location of the product is really key,â he says. âI like to get a product that looks nice because basically itâs fighting for its life to get someone to pick it up. So the better or more interesting it looks, the better chance it has of finding a home.â
After almost three decades in business, itâs clear Eric has found his home. But the grandfather of three isnât planning to retire anytime soon.
âPeople ask me if I have an exit strategy and I say, âhow do you spell that? Weâre going to keep on doing what weâre doing and trying to stay ahead of the curve.ââ
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