After 30 years of ownership, Jason Jeffries is following in his parents’ footsteps and is taking over the ownership reigns of Four Square Tekapo. Son to previous owners Russell and Lesley Jeffries, Jason grew up working in and around Four Square. He now owns and operates the store with his wife Casey Jeffries.
Russell and Lesley Jeffries moved to Tekapo for an exciting opportunity to partly-own a small service station in 1985. Over the years, they grew the station into a Four Square which included a petrol station. In 2017, Four Square Tekapo undertook a massive revamp growing by three times its original size and increased its staff size from 20 to 40 employees. The store boasts the best supermarket views in the country with large windows and views of Lake Tekapo.
With just over 500 residents, Tekapo caters to thousands of tourists year-round. The unique opportunity for Jason and Casey is to provide a wide range of options that best cater to their customers’ needs, local or tourist. With its diverse range of customers, convenience foods are incredibly popular.
Jason says, “there has been significant growth in food-to-go meals. Our customers are time-poor and want a meal they can eat on the go, is healthy and fresh. We’ve also expanded our health food offering which our customers are loving.
“We’re also looking for ways to operate more sustainably. Where possible we have removed packaging from our produce department, and we have a strict recycling programme. Sustainability is the biggest challenge we are currently facing as a supermarket. Customers are constantly asking us what we are doing in this space, and we are constantly challenged by how we can take a more sustainable approach.”
“Today’s consumers are concerned about food provenance and as a 100% Kiwi owned and operated business, we support our local community whenever we can. We love offering our customers products from local suppliers such as Jo O’Neill’s Eggs from Fairlie, Jo’s Jams from Timaru and Westlands honey from Fairlie.”
The support from their local community lies at the heart of why Jason and Casey love what they do. We see our store as a local hub for our local community, where people come to catch up with one another. “Local sports and community groups are so important to us, which is why we support social evenings, charity golf, bike races, squash club, the local walking tracks and provide free fruit to the local school when needed.”
“We cannot wait to continue to grow our relationship with customers and are looking forward to this new chapter in our lives.”
