By JONATHON HOWARD
CAPTION: Grove Juice managing director Greg Willis has signed a landmark deal with Coles rocketing his products up the competitive juice-market.
FAMILY-OWNED companies are using the supermarket wars to get a leg-up with most going from small operations to hundreds of staff within a generation.
Queensland firms such as Warwick’s processor Grove Juice, Toowoomba’s Homestyle Bake, and the Lockyer Valley’s Rugby Farm are unrecognisable from as little as a decade ago.
Spurred by the massive economies of scale a secure Coles contract can bring, they’ve put down thousands of dollars to make their family firms meet the market.
Grove Juice managing director Greg Willis, whose headquarters are in Brisbane, has been working with Coles for more than 15 years and the partnership has helped boost his juice products in the competitive drinks market.
“We have a good relationship,” he said. “Seventy per cent of the industry is controlled by multinationals, with about eight second-tier firms battling it out for the remainder of the market.
“It’s a fight, it’s a struggle. So we’ve got to do something different.”
Backed by the knowledge that their products had a strong place on supermarket shelves, Grove Juice planted 250,000 trees three years ago, which will hit full production in four years’ time.
“We’ll ultimately be one of the few companies in Australia that will be able to have fresh citrus for juicing all year round,” he said.
Mr Willis, who took Grove Juice from a one-man fresh juice maker and delivery operation to more than 100 staff, said much of his success came because he was prepared to take a smaller margin.
In January last year, he opened the Warwick processing factory – “a massive investment for our company” – in order to ensure he could satisfy big orders.
“If we want to work with customers like Coles, then we need to invest,” he said.
