Our History
THEN
We have over a quarter of a century of experience and relationships to drive your business in New Zealand supermarkets. The business commenced in 1988 by Maurice Anstiss as one of NZ’s first sales agencies into supermarkets and with his retirement in 2004 the business was acquired by Brian Phillimore, who resigned as Managing Director in September 2024. The business is now led by Richard Clulee who stepped up as Managing Director after 10 years in the General Manager role. Richard is one of a small group of shareholders with ownership interests.
NOW
Our team brings a wide range of experience from New World store owners to Foodstuffs employees with corporate and non-corporate sales experience. We bring a diverse range of knowledge and ideas to our brands and with an average tenure of 12 years with our company we have fostered a culture that goes beyond the next sale. We have developed excellent store and supermarket group head office relationships over a long period and we can trade on these relationships daily. Everyone in our team is actively engaged in ongoing training and development covering the spectrum of key account management, and sales training, through to an MBA, and most importantly we bring everyday knowledge of the industry to work every day.
Our portfolio covers premium and mainstream brands that encompass the full socio-economic spectrum of NZ supermarkets. The strength of our portfolio enables us to trade off each brand to get the best result for you in every store. Many of our brands (ranging from ambient grocery to chilled+frozen) are now number one or two in their category and in every case have a larger market share than when commenced.
The Vision
By engaging our services your brand will grow faster, with more success and greater profitability. You will receive better feedback and understanding of the market and your company will benefit from our quality relationships.
With a future focus, we have invested substantially in technology to be able to provide unique and exceptional insights to our clients.
How do we know this?
Utilising Aztec data we have benchmarked the market growth of our portfolio of agencies against the other major sales agency firms operating in NZ for the last two years. The average sales brokerage growth was 6.2% p.a versus total generic market growth of only 1.3%. College Hill Agencies’ growth over the same period was 12.3% – almost double that of other sales agencies. For more detailed information click here.
Culture Matters
We believe decisions are best made by those closest to the coalface. Stores want to deal with decision-makers, not order-takers. Supermarket group head offices want innovative thinking not “me too” representation.
Supermarkets are more demanding than they have ever been so we need to be smarter and more creative as a team to solve challenges. What we do together gets the right result for your brand.
Our Brand stands for:
Partnership focused, winning together.
Leaders, not followers.
Not tied to convention.
Openness to sharing of knowledge and ideas.
Pioneering spirit.
Our team is our advantage.
A passion for grocery. We live it.
Best, not the biggest.
Unique insights.
Commercial advantage.