IN 1892 Collingwood Football Club was founded, Sheffield Shield became our intercolonial cricket game and Glenloth won the Melbourne Cup.
That same year Johann Gottfried Arnold began delivering fresh fruit and vegetables in barrows and baskets to Albury households.
Four years earlier JG Arnold had lost his Walla farm job after leaving the ploughing to check on his wife who was having their seventh child.
In Albury JG Arnold and his wife Johanne Elisabeth made a fresh start on a business that would stand the test of time like few others.
Next week the fifth-generation family business will celebrate its 125th year of service on the Border.
We’re in our 15th year of home deliveries. Arnold’s Online is a good indicator of how my father and his father were always looking ahead.
- LOUISE ARNOLD
Today as many as 9000 shoppers buy fruit and vegetables at Arnold’s Fruit Market in Wodonga every week.
At almost 10 per cent of the Albury-Wodonga population, it’s the kind of reach businesses can only dream of.
But Arnold’s Fruit Market has been in the game longer than most.
In 1897 JG Arnold opened a shopfront on the site of the present-day Myer-Centrepoint arcade in Albury, where the business stayed until it moved across the river to Wodonga in 1980.
At the turn of the 20th century Arnold’s bought produce from 13 market gardens around Albury and Lavington, later branching out to Jindera and the Kiewa Valley.
Arnold’s Fruit Market fourth-generation operator Louise Arnold said the business had nurtured strong relationships with Border producers and customers alike.
“We’ve had connections with generations of farmers now; they’ve just continued over the years,” she said.
“We get deliveries from the Melbourne markets and Sydney and Brisbane but we also use our local suppliers.
“We have fresh produce coming in every day of the week.”
Today Arnold’s Fruit Market employs 90 staff including five members of the family: managing director Roger Arnold; his sister marketing and promotions manager Louise Arnold; Roger’s children – general manager Ben Arnold; driver Jake Arnold; and administration manager Maddy Arnold.
Louise Arnold said Arnold’s had flourished by constantly staying ahead of the game.
She said the business launched online delivery orders during 2003 off the back of her late father Paul’s idea.
One of the first orders came from a man living in Monaco who had fresh produce delivered to his parents in West Wodonga.
“We’re in our 15th year of home deliveries,” Ms Arnold said.
“Arnold’s Online is a good indicator of how my father and his father were always looking ahead.
“My father was in his early 70s at the time and he couldn’t even use a computer but he had said: ‘Let’s get this going and be a step ahead’.
“What I learnt from him was the importance of staying ahead of the game and listening to our customers.”
Arnold’s Fruit Market delivers to about 300 online customers a week now and does the same number of wholesale orders.
Ms Arnold said her father Paul believed it was vital to refresh the business every five years.
In 2012 Arnold’s Fruit Market tripled its retail space in Osburn Street and added undercover parking, marking the biggest changes to the business since Paul moved it to Wodonga in 1980.
Today’s facilities are impressive with a room specifically for ripening bananas — Arnold’s biggest seller in the fruit line. (Potatoes are the best-selling vegetable.)
The wholesale business also has a vegetable-peeling operation that produces 10 tonnes of potatoes, four tonnes of pumpkins and one tonne of both carrots and onions a week.
“Roger designed the pumpkin peeling machine 20 years ago but we’ve been peeling vegetables since the 1940s,” Ms Arnold said.
“The Butcher @ Arnold’s opened two years ago offering beef, lamb, pork and chicken as well as seafood and frozen lines.”
Arnold's has been delivering wholesale fresh fruit and vegetables on the Border to cafes, restaurants, clubs, hospitals and schools for more than a century.
Delivery areas include Albury, Lavington, Thurgoona, Wodonga, Baranduda, Beechworth, Yackandandah, Myrtleford, Bright, Falls Creek, Culcairn, Henty, Wagga, Chiltern, Howlong, Rutherglen and Corowa.
Ms Arnold said being based in farming heartland allowed them to get fresh produce into homes quickly.
“When something’s fresh we want to get it to out to customers now,” she said.
“That’s the benefit of social media and connecting with our customers immediately.”
Hoisted high above the cool rooms, the 1929 Chevrolet Arnold’s delivery truck might be worlds apart from online deliveries today but it’s hard to imagine its historical significance would ever be lost on the Arnold’s.
Arnold’s Fruit Market will celebrate its 125th birthday with a car park market sale from Wednesday to Friday.
