Page 18 - Food & Drink Magazine July 2018
P. 18

✷ RISING STAR
ABOVE: MatchWorks’ Joseph Porcaro (left) and Executive Director Renae Lowry with Bryn Pears and Silly Yaks’ 2017 National Employment Services Association Champion Employer of the Year award.
ABOVE: Silly Yaks makes a range of gluten- and nut-free bakery products.
BELOW: Silly Yaks founder Bryn Pears.
✷ HELPING HAND IT’S A MATCH
Silly Yaks Foods works closely with employment services body MatchWorks, which provides support around integrating staff from backgrounds with limited English or prior histories of substance abuse or long-term unemployment.
New Zealand, and in March Silly Yak Foods sent its first shipment to Dubai.
“From a strategic perspective, the objective at the moment is to get properly bedded down in Singapore as a gateway to South-East Asia, and in Dubai as a gateway to the Middle East and North Africa region.
“Domestic is still 90 per cent of what we do, but we’d like
to like to see that come down to 80 per cent within a couple of years.”
PEOPLE FOCUS
While 2017 was the company’s fifth consecutive year of compound annual double- digit revenue growth in excess of 10 per cent, in the past
12 months Bryn Pears has been particularly proud of two things. And neither has anything to do with winning product awards or more retail outlets ranging his products. The first was winning the National Employment Services Association (NESA)
Champion Employer of the Year. The second was being featuring in an Austrade brochure as an example of Australia’s food technology innovation capability.
“It’s not every day that the government of Australia holds you up as an example of what Australia does well, particularly when you’re a little, tiny company with 15 staff.”
THE COMPANY’S ANNUAL REVENUE GROWTH FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS
The NESA award was for the nominated company making the greatest contribution in 2017 to helping disadvantaged job seekers into stable, long- term, permanent employment.
“We have quite a few people working here who either had very limited English when they came, or prior histories of substance abuse or long-term unemployment – the things that often destroy people.
But we give them an opportunity to be part of something that makes them feel valued and worthwhile.”
Pears’ employment philosophy is very strong.
“All staff employed at Silly Yak Foods are permanent – we don’t employ casual staff – which means they get full access to superannuation, entitlements, and all that sort of thing.”
He also believes Australia doesn’t suit every type of manufacturer.
“If you want to manufacture a high-quality, niche, value-added product with a strong brand and a strong value proposition, and be a price maker and class leader, then there’s no reason you can’t do that in Australia.
“And it’s my intention to provethatbydoingit.” ✷
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18 | Food&Drink business | July 2018 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au


































































































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