Hervey Bay’s hospitality heroes
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When Lerie Geale moved from Canada to Australia, she’d envisaged the quintessential “Aussie” lifestyle with white sandy beaches and sparkling seas. But after marrying Frank Geale and settling in his birthplace Wagga Wagga, she soon got itchy feet. “She said Wagga was too hot and too cold and wanted to move,” Frank recalls.
After a failed first bid, Frank & Lerie acquired the business and renamed it HBW – Hervey Bay Wholesalers.
The couple scouted the NSW coast and Queensland for a suitable business. “We looked at caravan parks and I thought about returning to the plumbing trade,” Frank says. “We came to Brisbane on a holiday and I said, ‘Come on, let’s drive up to Hervey Bay’ with our one- and five-year-old. We immediately liked it.”
With a population of just 7000, the laidback coastal town ticked all the family’s boxes, and when they saw the Darling Downs Distribution business for sale, the pieces of the puzzle came together. “I come from family that’s always been in business in Wagga, so I wanted to find my own,” Frank recalls. “We found this foodservice business and put in an offer but were beaten by someone else, but then they couldn’t get finance or something and we got to buy it.”
And the kids couldn’t have been happier. “I remember as a kid, walking through the garage and seeing Uncle Toby’s muesli bars and going ‘Wow!’ and opening them up to have a couple,” recalls Evan Geale, Frank’s son who is now director of HBW.
They soon renamed the business to HBW – Hervey Bay Wholesalers – running it out of their home garage and expanding to service Maryborough, Bundaberg and surrounds. And as the local population swelled to the 60,000 population today, the Geales kept adapting to provide top notch service.
“I’d learnt about business through my parents’ businesses and the school of hard knocks,” Frank says. “We were talking to our customers, seeing avenues [for business] and looking for opportunities like branching into seafood, which really grew. After a few years we left the garage and moved into our own warehouse.”
Lerie and Frank Geale with son Evan who is now director of HBW.
Legacy not Lost
The HBW Foodservice warehouse in Hunter St, Hervey Bay servicing Hervey Bay, Maryborough, Burrum Heads, Howard, Childers, Bundaberg and Biggenden.
As much as the family business had served Frank and Lerie well, Lerie wanted her children to carve out their own life path. “She always told us not to get into the family business – she knew how much hard work it was – so I went off and studied computer science in Brisbane and then went travelling,” Evan recalls. “I returned to Brisbane and was living there when mum and dad started looking at selling the business and moving to Brisbane to be closer to family. I was 24 years old and thinking, ‘I’m never going to get another chance to get into a business of this magnitude’, so [my now-wife] Jodie and I moved to Hervey Bay.”
But it wasn’t a fast-track for the owner’s son to the director’s chair – Evan picked orders and delivered stock when he first joined the business in 2004, calling upon his IT smarts to improve operations. “We were picking by paper or using hand-written notes and I was like, ‘Sorry to say Dad, but this is terrible’,” Evan laughs. “So we really started advancing the technology we were using, updating the software and getting into warehouse management – we were the first to do picking by scanners and voice picking.”
In the 20-odd years Evan has been with HBW Foodservice, they’ve more than doubled their team to 33 members.
In the 20-odd years Evan has been with HBW Foodservice, they’ve more than doubled their team to 33 members, and have slowly purchased four of the surrounding blocks to expand into the 4000m2 warehouse facility they operate from today.
The key to their growth? Evan says it comes down to being willing to try new things and embrace the latest technology, like their new online ordering platform. “Dad’s always pushed the point that you have to be efficient, so we’re always trying to work out the best way to be the most efficient and cost-effective for our customers,” Evan says. “I’m not afraid to jump in and give something new a go – if it breaks, it breaks. In the case of our new online ordering app, it’s really eased the burden on communication. The staff are always saying, ‘Geez, it’s quiet’ but our figures show that it’s not quiet, there’s just fewer people calling up because they’re ordering more through the platform. We’re also selling more different products – the new app is basically a sales rep on its own.”
But as much as new technology has helped HBW Foodservice’s operation, the basics of good communication and relationships are still the most important foundations of the business. “I love the environment we work in – the people in this industry are fantastic,” Evan says. “The customers are what keep the business going, but the Countrywide members and the relationships we’ve built throughout the network, is a huge part of the enjoyment of this business. We’ve gotten to see other people’s warehouses and get new ideas to best serve our customers.”
HBW Foodservice Director