Frank Iannelli, managing director, Alpha Fresh, Hume, ACT
Tell me about Alpha Fresh
Alpha Fresh is a family wholesale business owned and operated by my brother Giuseppe and I.
Since we took over this side of the business from my father in 2015 we have grown a small Canberra-based wholesale business to pretty much the largest fresh produce supplier in the Canberra region with 16 vehicles on the road.
During COVID we also branched out into home delivery.
What do you specialise in?
Although we specialise in supplying fresh fruit and vegetables to our customers we keep adding lines to our service, including fresh meat, poultry and seafood.
We are also increasing our grocery lines to satisfy the home delivery and direct to consumer market.
What sets your business apart from other delivery services?
We specialise in delivering fresh food in all our lines, and understanding and supplying what our customers want.
We are experts in handling fresh food, from receiving it, storing it and dealing with individual customer requirements.
Where do you source your produce from?
Majority of our fresh fruit and vegetables come out of Sydney Market, although we still have relationships with local growers and buy locally when possible.
We also top up from Melbourne Market when needed.
Who are your customers?
The business has slowly transitioned from the wholesale supply of fresh produce to supermarkets, to supplying food services such as clubs, hotels, hospitals, aged care, restaurants, cafes and takeaways as well as our home delivery customers.
Our trucks go out twice a day for wholesale, an early morning run and a mid-morning run. They then go out in the late afternoon and evening for home delivery.
How did you get into the fruit and veg business?
It's who I am, I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
You need to go back a few generations to understand how fresh produce is in my DNA.
It started with my grandfather who was an orange farmer in Leeton, then my father and his two brothers moved to Canberra and established some fruit and vegetable shops, along with some trucks.
This established us in Canberra, bringing produce from Sydney and then from Canberra to Sydney.
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The brothers then went their separate ways and my Dad went into wholesale, including bringing lettuce from Hay into Sydney for a good while.
We had trucks running a cycle picking up produce in Griffith then taking it to Sydney, picking up produce from Sydney markets and taking it to Sydney.
I worked with my Dad for about eight years until my brother and I decided we needed to go out on our own, so we split the business with Dad taking all the line-haul with the trucks and we took over the wholesale side.
It was one of the best decisions we ever made as our wholesale business is thriving and his transport business is thriving.
What do you most enjoy about the market?
My brother is the one who goes to the market on a weekly basis to source produce for the business and build and maintain our relationships there but for me I enjoy the energy of the place, the wheeling and dealing, the noise and the atmosphere.
There is nowhere else like it.
How do you market the business?
We have worked out that buy marketing direct to the public through social media our wholesale business also benefits.
We also do a lot of social media collaborations with our restaurants and other customers, showcasing our products which benefits both of us and is cost-effective.
How has COVID-19, and now the weather, affected the business?
We are one of the largest suppliers of fresh food in the Canberra region which made it quite easy to branch out into home delivery when COVID hit.
Our infrastructure made it possible to do around 700 to 800 deliveries a day during lockdown.
We couldn't meet all the demand, and were literally run off our feet.
If you look at COVID in hindsight, it was a benefit for our business in all aspects; we've got more product lines, we've developed the home delivery side of the business and we've got more wholesale customers.
Post lockdown, we are now investing heavily into our online platform.
The continued success of our home delivery business has made us recognise that the future growth of our business is in the direct to consumer rather than the wholesale side of the business.
This will also give us the opportunity to showcase a lot of local products that aren't available in supermarkets to our customers.
The only negative is that we are still having a hard time finding new staff.
What have been some of the biggest challenges in the business over time?
One of the biggest challenges is keeping an eye on cash flow and making sure customers pay their invoices in a timely manner, which is why the home delivery business is worth investing in and building - customers pay for their produce before we deliver it which means we have money in the bank.
Of course it's the opposite with our wholesale customers.
What does the future hold for the fruit and vegetable industry?
I am very excited for the future of our business. I think the secret is to move with the market and not get stuck in your ways.
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