Grocery giant launches collab with small publisher thanks to buyer Shar Grothier
Sainbury’s buyer Shar Grothier has shown she still has greeting cards in her blood as she’s just brought a new partnership to fruition despite having changed her buying role.
The deal between the grocery giant and small publisher Murphy’s Sketches came about after Shar, who was the card buyer for the grocer until she recently moved to the party and paper tableware category, followed founder and artist Kerri Cunningham on Instagram when her moving sketch about Queen Elizabeth II’s death went viral.
“I reached out to Kerri early last year,” Shar told PG Buzz, “to see if she’d be happy to do a collaboration and she quickly jumped at the opportunity. I’d been following her on Instagram for some time and loved her work.”
And this week Kerri posted a cute reel, which can be seen below, showing the range in her local store, one of 393 of Sainsbury’s outlets to stock the six designs on a shout-out unit showcasing the affirmation captions.
Admitting she’d thought Shar’s email was “a hoax” when it arrived, Kerri explained that she’d fallen into art and publishing after suffering post-natal depression following the birth of her first child nine years ago and giving up her job as a visual merchandiser.
“The only job I could find to fit around my husband’s working hours was at this supermarket – Sainsbury’s!” Kerry said, “working nights 4am till 8am picking online orders.
“To be honest I loved the job, in hindsight I think it helped me to regulate all of my emotions and thoughts that I was struggling with. I’d whack on a podcast and whizz round and just escape my own brain for a few hours. I loved the order and regime of it.
“But, I had an eight-month-old who woke up at around 1.30ish every night, so I’d go to bed for a couple of hours, then get up with him, then set off for work, and the sleep deprivation was crazy. I genuinely think I went a little bit mad. I had about two hours sleep and I’d come home from my shift and just sit there and cry. I’d never felt tiredness like it.”
Gradually Kerri refound the creativity that had earned her a fine art degree at university and started her illustration business named after eldest son Murphy, where she was doing family portraits and building her clientele through her Instagram page.
She’s since had two more children and, after the youngest was born in 2021, began sharing poems, illustrations and lists as well as opening up about being a mum, which found an audience in others with similar experiences.
She’s gone on to sell cards and prints through her website, as well as writing and illustrating two books, A Book To Brighten Your Day was released in 2023 filled with drawings which highlight the little things in life, and her first children’s poetry volume There Is A Season came out in September.
Kerri also sketched her reactions to news and world events and, in 2022, her following jumped from 100,000 to 130,000 overnight thanks to the Queen reunited with husband Prince Phillip after her death, with the words “Hello again, Lilibet”.
So many people asked to buy it that she worked with promotional and branding firm The MPC selling prints which raised £18,000 for the NSPCC, followed by a Christmas collection including jumpers and tote bags.
Her work caught Shar’s eye and the positivity greeting cards struck a chord leading to the contact and collaboration which the buyer completed before changing roles, although she laughed: “I’ll always still have my foot in greeting cards – I love the area!”
Kerri added:“When I went into my local branch and found the cards, I honestly could have cried. If only I could go back nine years and speak to the person I was then, the person who was in bits, who’d lost themselves entirely, and say look! It’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay, you’re going to find yourself again – nine years, three babies later, and many many many more sleepless nights trying to work around them!”
And, laughing about her in-store camera work, she joked: “Sadly there wasn’t anyone with me to film, I was a lone mum on an escape mission to the supermarket late at night!”
