Building a Tech-Driven Food Distribution Business with Matthew Einersen

[Music] welcome to Red's Business and Technology podcast I'm your host Nigel hin and today I've got a very special guest Matthew Anderson on his birthday of all days he's um here celebrating with us so Matt thank you very much very honored to have you here thank you for having me so let's start Matt a bit about you you know tell us the story you know where Matt onison come from and um obviously your CEO of PE foods and then maybe secondly tell us a bit about you know PE Foods sure so um obviously Bru been born and bred um uh married two children Matty tan cam uh to um obviously currently live in Brisbane I've got a little farm out of crappy at the back OFA there which I like to spend a lot of time at um and we run a little herd of um Santa gudus breeding cattle so um the goal is is to spend more time out there yeah sort of in the future fantastic so as a leader of PE Foods I know that's a bit of a family Dynasty share with us what what PE Foods is all about and how it started really it's a great story sure so um so PE Foods has been around for 42 years so so our business um supplies the bakery hospitality and sort of food service industry with all of their food ingredients um it's been in business for 42 years so PE Foods actually started out as PE agencies so my dad started in 1982 and PE agencies actually supplied uh you know stade the sports drink um so supplied stemon um the pwed sports drink into it was sports sports clubs you know bakeries hotels and you know he did that for a period of time he literally started out of a shed you know with a van delivered it himself took the orders picked the orders and and got them into the customers um he did that for a period of time and then he could the big guys like your parades and Gatorades coming into the market so he realized the writing was probably on the wall as far as you know their marketing spend and and their push into Market which was you know going to take some of the market share away from that stemina a so he was he was at the time delivering into some bakeries and some clubs and he started asking questions around you know where do you buy that cheese and bacon or you know where do you buy your fresh Apple from and he ultimately started bringing products in and he he started with you know things like fresh Apple bacon cheese into bakeries and then you know he then started getting into a bit of packaging and then ultimately the business sort of turned into a bit of a One-Stop shop for bakeries so a bakery could ultimately come to um to PE foods which he eventually Chang the name to because he felt that PE agencies wasn't very descriptive for what the business actually was and he felt he needed to add the word Foods in there so kept it as PE foods and then ultimately yeah as I said he um turned it into a One-Stop shop for bakeries um um and you know he started in Milton just near the Forex F Factory there with a little Warehouse um and actually I can remember throughout us throughout my school holidays you know would go out in uh in his delivery van and I still very specifically remember uh the smell of sultanas that he used to deliver to to customers and you know would take the product out of the van deliver it to customers and then go back to the warehouse and you know he'd put the orders in and you know pick them pack them and and it start again the next day PE Foods um you know pretty well kept itself as a baker distributor for a period of time um picked up some franchise business um in the '90s which sort of helped the business grow um and then myself well I got involved in the business in 2002 it was um you know and I was reasonably lucky that you know I had an understanding of of what the business did I'd worked in the warehouse in school holidays uh I'd picked and packed stock um and I actually had zero intention of getting involved in our business I actually wanted to be a pilot was my aspirations you know being a pilot is obviously an expensive gig too particularly for a you know 18 19 year old coming up with that sort of capital to get your license so um I remember just come out of school dad said to me why don't you consider a customer service role you know someone's just left maybe you can do this for you know five or six months save some money and then you know decide what you want to do so you know I took that opportunity and to be honest with you in that first 3 or 4 months mon I just loved it you know I loved working the business I loved the fact that you know I saw the input that you made towards the business you know controlled your ultimate ultimate Destiny and the outcome of the business um I was lucky that it was a reasonably small business back then so I was able to work through Warehouse customer service you know had an understanding of procurement and as the business continued to grow I got to you know work in every section of the business and it was probably um you know fast forward to 2014 um we had one customer that had become quite a big part of our business we felt the bakery industry you know was pretty flat at the time um there was probably more bakeries closing than there was opening and I very much felt like we needed to diversify the business so you know I felt the best way to diversify the business at the time was to acquire something because obviously it gave you a customer base straight away gave you additional products gave you cash flow from day one you know to diversify obviously all we knew it was food at the time so we felt um we wanted to invest our money into food into a food business we were buying off a company called Jil food provador at the time uh which was basically a specialty find Food business so it was supplying um restaurants cafes delies uh hotels with all sorts of you know um fooding or specialty Fine Food Products so things like cheeses small Goods um you know retail products imported Chocolat I think at the time they had about 600 customers um so we felt it was a good way to hedge our bet um we kept that business separate cuz you know for me it was really important to make sure that um we could clearly identify who we were so we didn't want to at the time merge the businesses together and lose what our identity is so we kept PE Foods separate and we kept Jal separate at the time and we ran them as two separate entities and then I guess over the period of you know the next 6 7 8 years um bought a total of seven businesses so those businesses were um businesses that were strategic in terms of um location regionally or uh were strong in a particular product group that we didn't operate in at the time so it was things like small Goods French food import food service we bought a business that you know specialized in schools up in North Queensland and Food Service I opened a warehouse in townz cuz we felt like that there was an opportunity up there to um you know to get some Market sh there and the benefit at the time was and this is where you know the diversification of products really started to hit its own um we were able to combine the P Foods bakery product range and the J food providor um product range into one and we basically offered that product range to our customers up there so it was very good because the customers could you know ultimately pull from the product ranges out of Brisbane because we had quite a large you know product range then um it gave them quite an offering you know for their businesses up there um and then I guess as we continued to Quire businesses um we were able to add those product ranges into the group so our product range grew and then you know I remember we bought a a business up in cans because we were in townsel we were trying to go into the cans market and I remember the customers saying to us if you want to be serious you have to have a business locally so we can get the products 5 days a week and obviously traveling up and back from townsel every day of the week y um you know that that's a lot of wear and tear on your trucks and your team so we bought a business up there um which was AAL Fine Food business and because at that time we might have had a few thousand products and they had 300 we were able to Overlay the few thousand products into the offering for the customers up there and you just naturally get growth so we continued to do that um so we had a can's business um we then uh bought a business in uh Northern New South Wales down in Austinville called Gourmet toou and um again it was specialty Fine Foods it was Northern New South Wales it was strategic in the way that at Brisbane Warehouse was actually sending a lot of stock down at the time um so again a lot of wear and tear on your trucks and your your team and infrastructure Etc um so we were able to move a lot of our New South Wales business out of our Brisbane facility to the New South Wales facility again we picked up a customer base a um a product range and I guess that's sort of where we're at now so we currently operate six facilities um we got over just over 3,000 customers we deliver to on a weekly basis and uh that's sort of our story yeah it's fantastic you know you guys are an essential service without you you know we can't really eat and have food and you know live the lives that you know we all expect so you know hats off to you guys so thank yeah thank you mate and in terms of you I guess you know Reminiscing on your history it adorned you've done a fair bit of m&a in that time right so in some ways that the merger and acquisition you know path has being the the the leader as the CEO why would people like I guess what's the difference if I'm an owner selling to you guys like what's the attraction that you guys bring you know my experience is when people want to sell their business they actually want to see it go to someone that cares and they want to see it go to someone that actually they feel can add value and and the feedback I've had from owners selling is they want to see it go to someone that can actually add more value or take it to the next level compared to what they think they can um so I think you know for us obviously you know um buying the businesses it's good for the owners because they get an exit um you know in the past we've typically kept people on for or the owners on for 3 to 6 months they're very happy to transition out of that period and and usually we've got you know changes and plans that we want to put in place as well and one thing I didn't mention before actually is um as we acquired businesses we got to a point where we actually had a number of trading entities so some customers were actually getting you know three trucks three separate trucks per week from three of our different businesses when we had them at you know separate at the time so we felt you know about 2 years ago that we needed to get to the point where we could bring them all together and we actually became a bit inefficient because they were op operating separately but go back to what I said earlier it was really important for us to actually um clearly identify who we are as a distributor so we merged all of the businesses together um and then we split the business in two as far as divisions so we put a bakery division in place which technically Prides itself on being a One-Stop shop to a bakery and then we put an artisan division in place so again specialty find Foods cheeses small Goods retail products um so when our sales team walk into these customers they can clearly identify you know who they work for what the division is but they're actually able to leverage off each other's product base and you know the bakery customers can get access to the specialty specialty F food product base and and vice versa our rep our all of our um territory managers are all trade qualified as well so um our Bakery division have Baker pastry Cooks by tribe and our territory managers for the Artisan side of the business are all Chef spy trade so again they can have technical conversations with our customers you know our our territory managers the artist and business will sit down with a chef and you know we'll get to the point where they're helping wrting menu we can then put our ingredients into that menu and at least you sort of got it secured for a quarter yeah um or one season so we feel that works really well yeah fantastic yeah it's interesting we get quite a few hundred you know Business Leaders um watching and listening to our podcast and I think just listening to how you've done Embrace that cross cell you know upell strategy and um you know look it's all about giving back right so you know people listen the challenges of working in a family Le familyowned business so obviously your your father was you know quite instrumental in building the business um how did you find that you know share with us I guess the the trials and tribulations because I I know quite a few friends of mine that own family businesses and relinquishing control can be a bit of a challenge like you know how's your experience been to be honest uh my experience has been very good you know I was very lucky in the way that um my father you know um very clearly stepped away one day and I sort of stepped in and I I think you know we're really clear to the team what the direction of the business was I've never liked the perception of how family businesses can be viewed from time to time um and for me I was really aware of the perception of me coming through the business and and I really wanted to prove my worth to the business and to the team and I guess you know that really drove me to partly growing the business so you know technically I can sit here today and go well this is the value that I've bought the business um I think as as a generation coming through the business you got to work harder and longer because there is a perception you know we were really lucky that I think you know the team could see that I put a lot of effort in I was there every single day I did add a lot of a to the business you know particularly the last 10 to 15 years I think the most important thing is is you got to be really clear on what your structure looks like and really early on you know we made sure that our corporate structure was strong uh my father as he sort of stepped out he made it really clear you know that um the size of the business at the time he made sure that people didn't come to him cuz you you see in family businesses um where your Founders um have obviously have started it they've grown it and they still want to have their finger in the pie and I think that's where it goes wrong from time to time that people go direct to them and then it cuts out you know um the family coming through and you get the all these mixed messages on you know what's the direction of the business so if I think about the last you know 10 or 15 years more specific specifically recently you know we've got an executive leadership team we have a senior leadership team and we've always had a very clear corporate structure um that the team you know knew who was who in the zoo as such you know even with all of our management team as well so for me I'm really grateful um that we had I think um what was a really successful transition uh where you know you've seen businesses that they don't have so much of a successful transition you know my father still comes in couple of days a week he sits on our board um um you know over the years he been a great sounding board um we get on extremely well um and to be frank I I don't ever think we have had a disagreement we've never had a heated word we very much see eye to eye and I think the the greatest gift he could give me um and my mom is is they were very supportive of me changing the direction of the business you know cuz we knew we needed to do something different um and right along the way you know um they've always been you know my number one supporters and you you know I'm extremely grateful for that oh it's fantastic hearing that cuz you do see that family sometimes a bit of that ego or you know a bit of that control is hard to relinquish but you know use the word support I think you know you you've been mature enough to know that you've had to you know double down and you know prove to everyone that you're able to take this business to the next level and I think you know to your to your father's credit too he's been mature enough to step back and say look you know Matt's in charge you know I'm going to support him so fantastic family story and look I think you know the gratification is when um Peter comes into work to add Peter um and he go you know I'm really proud to see what the business is today you know for me uh I find that really humbling um you know it's great feedback and and it's really nice to walk in the office and you know see the size of the team and and we're really lucky in the way that we have an extraordinary team you know I have a a phenomenal exec leadership team we got a great senior leadership team and right throughout the entire business we're really lucky to have a an extremely supportive team and without them at the end of the day you know we got nothing without our team on board so um you know we have a we got a great team culture yeah fantastic man look you know my my internal philosophy of life is to make sure the generation that you create does better than you right so for me you know just seeing what you know I know obviously know you guys' clients as friends but you know seeing what you know Peter's established and what you've taken it next Lev it's fantastic and I guess flipping that you you're a young successful CEO that understands the value of Technology you know I can't you know let you not go without asking this question being a technology business but talk to me through you know where you see technology adding value and you know things like cyber and all of that in your business because I know we've spoken you at nauseum over the years but I think you had an outage many many years ago where you know backups weren't able to be recovered and you know just realizing that H going to say technolog is oxygen to my business I can't function so just share to the listeners I guess you know the importance of you know making sure you make mature and smart decisions around technology look I I think if you go back um what was it maybe 14 15 years ago uh we were with a company back then and we had an outage and we realized that the backups weren't working they hadn't been testing them and as a person that has been through a business that was down for a number of days and the stress on the business the team the customers you know I'm very aware of you know uh investing in technology to make sure that doesn't happen I think you know if you look at our business um probably five six years ago when we started to merge all the businesses together my goal for the business was to be a tech-based business that delivered food and that was the message to the team so we started a process of you know introducing warehouse management systems um we just recently put um a product in that basically uh takes all of our orders the day before um it looks at our Fleet it looks at the amount of kilos a truck can deliver maximum driving time and it technically spreads all of the orders right across our Fleet to make sure drivers aren't going over their driving times making sure that um you know deliveries get done in a certain period of time um and it gives the drivers goals along the way that they got a hit to get the deliveries done so you know that's made us really efficient obviously you know we bought you guys on a number of years ago cuz again we wanted to keep sort of in investing in that um efficiency infrastructure and and the sort of dollars our business turns over on a day-to-day basis these days we just cannot afford to go down um and I think the best way I could describe it is our customers need ingredients and if we're down for 24 48 Hours those customers are going to go and buy off someone else because they can't close their venue just because we're shut so for our business the challenge is is once that customer goes to a competitor it's then very difficult to get that customer back so as you know we've invested heavily in our our server environment our backups um recently we invested in Arctic Wolf which gives us some protection around cyber um cuz again you know for for the investment that we made I'm a big believer of it's not until you actually go down that you go I really wish that I'd spent the money when it was on my mind because when your business is under severe stress and pressure you know whatever your investment is you know for one decision where it's 700 Grand or whatever um for Arctic Wolf you would get to a point the day that you're down and go I would spend that every day of the week to make sure that we're not down now and the problem is for every day that we're down that then impacts you know the next day and the day after and it's it's it's almost impossible to catch up we just don't have the infrastructure in our business to then add all of that in the next day and so on and so forth cuz our business is AP from Saturday night um we're you know 24/7 these days so uh you just you can't afford to even have an hour and as a leader what would you give advice to those leaders out there that don't really they're scared of technology or don't understand it like how did you like even before meeting us like how did you embrace it as something that you wanted to really you know you said you want to have a tech business that just happens to deliver products right so how did you get that mindset I think it's a couple things I I think at the end of the day we've got to be the very best we can be for our customers and operating a very manual manually driven business is not going to make you the very best you can be for your customers so if I think about customer attention and customer churn and I go back say five or six years ago um you know we might pick up five customers you might lose two or three you might pick up six you'd lose one we don't lose much business these days and I think it's it's because we're as good as we've ever been for our customers you know we deliver in full on time um you know our service is good customers get their products they know when they're going to get it they get a text message to say deliver is on the way um you know so I I think it at the end of the day it actually comes back to um being the very best you can be for your customers so to answer your question the efficiency for me was a big driver um and also at the end of the day I think if you can make your business better and easier to operate for your team you retain your talent in your business no one likes a hard clunky business to operate so if you can get a business that you know is efficient easy everyone comes to work going today's going going to be a good day um you know our system isn't breaking down we don't have computer systems dropping out um and you know they can go home at the end of the day and go um you know things weren't ran well you know that just that actually improves your company culture as well so I think it's a multifaceted answer it is good advice on the culture you know I remember many years ago on accounting firm that um we tried to sway to come across as a client but they kept on saying we're losing staff like staff don't stay here they come and join us for a few months and then they leave and you we really when we just dissected it is they weren't embracing technology as a differentiator there were these unig grads that were looking for new technology and they stepping back in time right so why would they stick around but look you've been like hat off to you not just hit because you're sit in front of me but you know genuinely have embraced stuff and being very open to you know staying ahead of the curve which is you know why you've done so well I was going to ask another question I guess from a challenging business environment economy all of that sort of stuff like what was one thing that you will always turn to when you're stuck like you know you mentioned that you run things to Peter like how do you solve a challenge like whether it's technology whether it's business whether it's efficiency whether it's people like as a leader what do you turn to I turn to my team you know I'm I'm a really Frank person I have very open discussions with our team there's nothing that sort of is on my mind that I don't share with them um so that's what I'd say I'd do you know probably two or three years ago um I took the initiative to set up a board and we we bought an independent chairperson in um again you know good for for corporate governance I think good for the structure of the business good to keep us you know thinking 3 5 10 years ahead so um Amanda is our chairperson she's been really good um she's someone that you know I talked to a bit about challenges issues she's really good around um you know um getting us to think a bit differently you know as I said before Peter's on our board so you know he brings 40 years of experience in food distribution he's really good um from that perspective but you know I think the team because at the end of the day if your team don't understand what your challenges or frustration are they actually can't help you fix those problems so I just think Clarity um with your direct reports Clarity throughout the business is really important whenever I've shared an issue a frustration or problem and the team understand the reason why you know I might be feeling that way or the reason why we need to make a change in our business if they have all of the information you know information's power so if they've got all the information at hand they can often make really good decisions to help um Embrace a change and make the change thems really really good advice just hearing it you publicly share that and really appreciate M um changing gears for few minutes in terms of the economy you know we were talking before you know the Queens wolf has just launched and um you know in terms of restaurants and you know the the buzz that's going around with some you know struggling and some growing like where do you see CU you're obviously quite you know you're you're right at the cace with you know what what's your what's your thoughts on the economy and you know just things in general yeah look it's really interesting so if I look at the last couple of months in our business we've had a a fantastic start to the financial year it's interesting in our business cuz we are we're very reliant on discretionary spending so clearly if the economy you know is challenged and cost of living is expensive that should have a knock-on effect to our business but you know we're seeing both parts of our business the Artis and bakery side of the business going reasonably well um I think the last couple of months we've benefited from you know the tax cuts flowing through um I think the electricity rebates have been a benefit where people are getting a saving there um you our business if you think about the last 40 years going through gfcs floods fires Co um you know we see that um that discretionary spend shift so if people don't typically have as much money in their pockets you might see the Artisan restaurant side of the business drop a bit but you actually see that lower spend in Bakery increase and again in Co if if I think about our diversification strategy um you know clearly the hospitality side of the business was decimated for a period of time but the retail and B side of the business exploded and then when people came out of Co and then you know had quite a lot of extra money in their pocket you know the bakery piece still was really strong but you know people had money in their pocket so the Artisan you know restaurant Cafe side of the business absolutely fired up so my view of the economy as it is right now is um you know it's going okay um I think another interest rate increase uh would hurt big time um you know I look at our data pH in our business again that's another marker of how the economy is going and we're as you said we're the cold face of our business and I'm not seeing any concerns there so look at this point if we can you know avoid another rate increase um I think we're you know odds on for a reasonable Christmas oh it's fantastic listen into that positivity from you mat so I appreciate that um future looking what's what's the future plans for we we'll talk about PE Foods what you can share you know where are you guys looking over the next future and then you obviously you what are you looking to do over the next couple of years PE Foods so I think um you know we're going through a process at the moment of almost right sizing our business so you know any underperforming products we're moving on you know we've got some suppliers that you know they continually out of stock us you know we're respectfully parting ways and we're trying to just build a a really good uh Core Business around our customers I sort of measure whilst we've got all of the numbers and data and you know powerbi and information in front of us um I I measure the business sort of in an intangible way and that is is the noise in the business so the noise is your your customer complaints your staff complaints um you know I think the goal is is to just simply make the business as good as it possibly can be continue to invest in um in efficiency um obviously infrastructure technology um probably sort of you know moving on maybe 12 months in advance you know we're always looking at you know different Acquisitions or different opportunities and it's got to be it's got to be good for the business because you know any acquisition position that you make or any big bit of business that you bring into the business no matter how good you are it will take your eye off the ball for a period of time whilst you integrate it um so I I think you know it's got to tick the boxes um we supply products into every state of Australia apart from Northern Territory um it would be good to have you know a facility maybe down in Sydney or something like that but I think just with the business that we've got at the moment the opportunities that are in front of us I think for the next 2 to 3 years um we just concentrate you know the customer base we've got we we focus on organic growth um because obviously that's the most efficient profitable growth you can get rather than going out and buying business um that's probably the direction for us Fant and for you more time down at the farm what's the you know the personal you know once look for me having the exec leadership team Drive the dayto day I think is extremely important you know as as someone that ultimately is driving the direction of the business I think it's really important to have think time and think time is time where you go where do we want to be in 3 years 5 years 10 years um and stepping away from that dayto day whilst I'm still very much involved but not necessarily involved operationally dayto day um you know I think I'm extremely lucky to have um a very capable exec leadership team to make my life you know a bit easier get some time away from the business I would love to um I would love to spend more time out at the farm I love it out there you know our family loves it out there um but you know I also really enjoy what I do too I enjoy working with our team I enjoy seeing our customers suppliers going around our depos and visiting our team so certainly the foreseeable future um is very involved in the business still and um I guess um yeah we'll see where we go last question what would you want to be known as as your legacy that's a good question I think building on the foundations that my father started um you know building a business that um was built through diversification so it has multiple income streams um that gives the team options you know it gives us a greater spread across customers suppliers and products it um de Del leverages our risk so I think you know my legacy is is to have built a diversified food distribution business um that ultimately the team can run on a day-to-day basis and have a culture ultimately where everyone comes to work they enjoy what they do and they're really invested in seeing the business be successful as well awesome Matt look seriously I really appreciate you've been a you know success story that you know not many people know about like I mentioned before had some friends say oh pee Foods tell me more about them so hats off to you and your family you know you've done amazingly well you're a great fan I look up to you as a mentor you know what you've achieved you've done amazing and happy birthday you know thank you for instead of spending time somewhere else you're here having a podcast with with Lil all n so mate really appreciate it I couldn't think of anywhere else better to be mate so thank you thanks mate cheers [Music] n

2024-09-12 06:56

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