Son Nathan and father Peter de Clifford of Otago Cleaning
Supplies at the new King Edward St site yesterday. Photo by
Craig Baxter.
A more than $1 million business expansion is nearing
fruition in South Dunedin, with 18-year-old Otago Cleaning
Supplies readying for the shift into its purpose-built
premises.
Company founder Peter de Clifford said the business wanted to
raise its profile and future capacity, moving from the
relatively obscure and small Fish St premises, to South
Dunedin, where there are 11,000 traffic movements daily past
the front doors.
Otago Cleaning Supplies does not manufacture chemicals or
undertake contract cleaning services, but supplies cleaning
products around South Canterbury, Otago and Southland to
sectors including hospitality and industrial, motels, rest
homes, schools and the university, plus a network of 20
distributors around the country, and also has links to
grocery chains.
The two-storey 427sq m building on freehold land has bulk
storage facilities, a showroom and administration office,
which will remain a family-owned local business, run by Mr de
Clifford's son Nathan and daughter Michelle Cuthill.
''I'm project manager at the moment, then its semi-retirement
and off fishing,'' Mr de Clifford said.
The company employs six people, but Mr de Clifford hopes to
boost turnover and expand within the new premises. He said
trading had been tighter since the height of the property
boom in 2007, and the past two years of a recessionary
economy saw customers looking harder at their spending and
there was increasing competition from imported products.
''The project is a more than $1 million commitment and we've
had very good support from clients,'' Mr de Clifford said.
Dunedin's Naylor Love is the main building contractor, with
the project on time and on budget and scheduled for opening
in April, he said.
Mr de Clifford said the project started about a year ago,
with the earlier South Island earthquakes prompting the need
for three geotechnical reports on the ground, and an almost
quadrupling of the thickness of the concrete raft slab to
560mm deep.
Mr de Clifford worked for the McLeod Bros in Cumberland St,
as a soap works contract manager, but when McLeod's was
broken up he formed the Chemical Distribution Company and
went into a four-person partnership with Phillips Products;
eventually buying-out the latter.
- simon.hartley@odt.co.nz
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