About Us
Vision Mission Statement:
Brands you trust at prices you can afford
History
Reduced to Clear was founded by Sean Hills & Andrew Vermeulen, who between them have over 30 years experience in the food industry.
Sean: "We were seeing so much food product being unnecessarily dumped, even though it was perfectly fine to eat. What's the point of dumping perfectly fine food products into the ground when there's a world shortage of food? It just didn't make sense."
In seeing the unnecessary waste Andy and Sean saw the need to establish a grocery clearance store hence Reduced to Clear was founded. Sean tells the story.
"We opened our first store in Wiri, South Auckland in July 2008. You could say it was a bit of a "Kiwi" garage story I guess. We opened on a Thursday from 11am to 4 pm to see what would happen. We believed we had something good old regular Kiwis would want. Half priced food products and all leading brands to go with it.
Selling clearance goods isn't new, but a dedicated grocery clearance store was. On our first day we had about 10 suppliers behind us, and we got about 50 customers through the door. We were stoked!! As we become more and more popular with the locals we had to keep the shop open longer and open more and more days. It just happened really.
We now have 2 stores open 7 days a week, about 50-100 suppliers on our books and a website to offer our grocery clearance goods to all New Zealanders.
We would like to take chance to thank all our suppliers from the team at RTC and all our loyal customers. Our customer's love that you give them a chance to eat all their favourite brands at reduced to clear pricing. By decreasing the dumping and unnecessary wastage of products, we all win.
Our factory outlet store has grown to become a regular shopping destination for thousands of local Aucklanders a week searching for great food and grocery style products at hugely "reduced to clear" prices. Our customers have been known to drive for 2-3 hours to come and do a fortnightly shop. Many of them come to us first to buy a lot of their groceries, goodies and treats at crazy prices then go to the supermarket for a top up.
Our Wellington store - located in Kingsford Smith Street, Lyall Bay - is also open 7 days as well.
Reduced to Clear was created to help minimize food wastage, give the public a chance to buy discounted food products, and also help recycle the packaging material that was going straight into the ground. A win/win for everyone involved. We now have many local food manufacturers and distributors asking if they can sell us their clearance lines to get some recovery on the product they would normally dump."
The company today
Reduced to Clear is a Phoenix from the recessions ashes. Reduced To Clear has not only survived but thrived by being different and offering an alternative to the supermarkets high prices during difficult times. Reduced to Clear has become increasingly popular as a shopping destination and the large range of grocery products grows every week.
The team at Reduced to Clear has also grown rapidly and the supermarkets/online stores now employ over 20 staff.
The Management Team at Reduced to Clear are hands on where possible and are always looking for innovative ways to lower food bills, and support local communities.
