Shops / Shop of the Week
Shop of the Week: Avonmouth Paint & Supplies, Avonmouth
A short walk from Avonmouth Station stands a quiet powerhouse of the paint industry: Avonmouth Paint & Supplies.
First opened in 1998, the store on Gloucester Road transferred ownership to Patrick Capaldi 16 years ago.
Bored of retirement, the now 74-year-old Patrick has been steadily growing the business since that day.
Avonmouth Paint & Supplies keeps bubble wands and sweets by the till in the summer for younger customers
From his many years in different industries, Patrick learned to dislike rigid workplace hierarchy – something he has intentionally avoided in his own business.
“To me, we’ve all got roles within the team but that doesn’t make you better than anyone else,” he says.
Patrick attributes the company’s success to its close relationships with customers: “If you don’t have a relationship with your customers, they’re not your customers. They’ll go anywhere.”
Rather than spending on advertising, Avonmouth Paint & Supplies donates that money each month to local charities and organisations.
Patrick says: “People like to share good news, that’s better advertising than you can ever do in a magazine.”
Among the causes supported are the Children’s Hospital, Girl Guides, Sea Scouts and community centres in Avonmouth, Severn Beach and Pilning.
Even during the pandemic, Patrick and his team kept the business open to serve their contractors and communities.
At the same time, he donated large quantities of acrylic paint to the Children’s Hospital, helping transform bare walls into colourful murals designed to capture children’s imaginations.
Although his business has grown year on year, Patrick says he keeps things “very, very tight financially because it’s a very volatile world right now.”
Now, facing an impending paint supply crisis due to surging oil prices, Patrick says he looks out for his contractors by stocking up on all the fundamentals.
“We know that they’re contracted to deliver jobs on time so we have to make sure we can deliver to them through next year to make sure they keep going.”
Avonmouth Paint & Supplies keeps stock in old shipping containers
Those contractors include organisations such as the NHS, Airbus and the police.
The business specialises in high-performance coatings, including anti-mould paint and what Patrick calls a “miracle” paint capable of curing underwater.
The latter has earned contracts in marine environments including Weston Pier and Minehead.
“We are specialists, we don’t sell paint like ten quids for a tub,” Patrick says.
The team are always on the lookout for new technological innovations in the paint industry
With three mixing machines and one hand mixing station, Patrick says he can supply “any paint you can imagine”.
He also believes specialist suppliers play an important role in public safety.
“We see so many charlatans on the internet,” he says, recalling online listings for coatings containing cyanates, “essentially cyanide”, without proper warning labels.
Sustainability is also important.
Every paint can is crushed and recycled, while off-colour aerosols are donated to local art students rather than thrown away.
Patrick is proud of Avonmouth’s heritage, particularly of the dockers who served in the grain and powdered milk warehouses throughout the war.
“They kept not just this city, but a lot of cities going, despite being bombed.”
In the coming years, he hopes to honour their importance with a mural on the side of his shop inspired by a historic photograph of the business from decades ago.
Old photos are kept above the till in Avonmouth Paint & Supplies
All photos: Aurora Amaryllis
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