10th May 2019: The Call of the Country

Written by the National Australia Bank

From a cramped Melbourne factory to a $50 million turnover – here's how a move to the country gave this food manufacturer room to grow.

When True Foods moved from a cramped Melbourne factory to a 27-acre facility in regional Victoria, it gained a lot more than extra space.

"In the city we were just another business," says Mark Thurlow, who co-owns the company with founder Keith de Vries. "We didn't really know our neighbours or interact locally. Here, we're part of a vibrant community and we pride ourselves on having a positive impact."

Mark Thurlow

The company has also grown into the largest Australian-owned manufacturer of tortilla wraps, flatbread products and bakery snacks products with an annual turnover of about $50 million. Customers include multinational supermarkets, international franchise groups and health food chains.

"We're particularly proud of our sub-brand, Simson's Pantry, as all of our competitors in the wrap space are global companies with a multibillion-dollar turnover," Thurlow says. "We love that an Australian-owned brand has been so well accepted in the face of such stiff competition."

Complementary Skills

True Foods was born in 2000, when food technologist de Vries started making high-quality French crepes. Thurlow had his own health foods and weight loss business, Empower Foods, and he was one of True Foods' first customers.

"Keith and I gradually realised we had complementary skills and that we could work well together," he says. "It's a standing joke that I'm here to put the handbrake on Keith's harebrained ideas but, in reality, it's about finding the right balance between innovative spirit and commercial reality."

In 2007, de Vries and Thurlow decided to seal the partnership by merging their businesses under the True Foods banner.

"We started out with seven or eight staff then, by 2011, we had 85," Thurlow says. "We were keen to keep on expanding and a facility in Maryborough looked like our best option."

Transparency And Understanding

Once they'd decided on the move, Thurlow and de Vries put a lot of time and effort into planning and securing the necessary finance.

"I've always believed in maintaining a very open and transparent dialogue with our bankers," Thurlow says. "I share both the good things and the not-so-good things that happen, so they have an intimate understanding of who we are, our level of professionalism and what we're trying to achieve. That makes the conversations around funding growth so much easier."

Despite moving at their busiest time of year, they didn't miss a single customer order.

"One thing we hadn't realised was that our customers had been holding back while we were short of space so as not to put us under too much pressure," Thurlow reveals. "Once we'd moved, they increased their orders and our growth surged by 30 per cent in six months."

Looking back, Thurlow believes their biggest challenge was recruiting and integrating a diverse and inexperienced group of people in a very short space of time.

"When you put on one or two new people, they can be absorbed into the existing culture," he says. "We moved into a completely new geographical area and needed 160 staff. We were taking on people from many different backgrounds, many of them casual and most of them new to food manufacturing, so we found ourselves trying to build a culture very, very quickly. That was something we hadn't anticipated and it ended up taking the best part of five years.

"If we were doing it again we'd have a far more formal recruitment and induction process and spend more time on team building. We might even pull the reins of growth just a bit to give ourselves more time to bed down the culture and create a strong foundation for expansion.

"The good news is that we now have over 200 very loyal and passionate staff who are committed to helping us make the business work."

Operating outside a major city has brought other unexpected benefits.

"Distribution actually costs less now because we've been able to work very closely with a number of regional freight companies," Thurlow says. "We've also found that if you're willing to be very open and transparent with other companies in the local area, you can often find fantastic synergies that can benefit both parties."

Continuing To Expand

True Foods is currently installing a 1.2-megawatt solar system to provide energy security into the future. De Vries and Thurlow are also considering developing their remaining 25 acres over the next decade.

"Innovation is a driving force in our success," Thurlow says. "We intend to continue building on our platform of operational excellence to expand our product range and diversify into other aligned areas in coming years."