Perfection - a family story

"In fresh produce processing, if you're not investing every day, you're going out of business." Michael Simonetta

I can't quite remember now how I came across this particular Australian company but anyway here I am revisiting it. It sounded like one of those amazing poor immigrant to multinational stories, and it sort of is. Mostly it is a pretty inspiring story although there might be a couple of dark corners to it.

Now simply called Perfection, the company has gone through a number of name changes. I'm not sure what all of them were, but the most recent was Perfection Fresh. In 2014 it merged D'Vine Ripe, a company it jointly owned with the Smorgon family, and Perfection Fresh. There was a major rebranding in 2017 which brought together dozens of different products they had been marketing, under the same label in which the provenance of each item was prominent and the Australia Made symbol was also prominent as well as a new company logo and a new company website. Because:

"In the fresh produce aisle, establishing product provenance is increasingly important to consumers, so making it easier for shoppers to identify the local source and traditional origin of their favourite fresh fruit and vegetables is key to driving sales." Michael Simonetta

And this is certainly something that has been picked up by Coles at least with some of their produce having the producer's name and photograph upon it. The picture above is a typical Perfection label. Though I think their major supermarket liaison is with Woolworths.

The company has its roots back in the 50s, when Tony Simonetta came to Australia with his parents from Italy. They set up a fruit and vegetable shop in Moorebank, Sydney in 1955. Tony worked in the shop and eventually, of course, took it over.

But by 1978 he had had enough of long hours and no holidays, and with his cousin bought a wholesale business at the Flemington market. He never really enjoyed working in the produce industry and so, like many migrants, encouraged his children to go to university and enter the professions. And two of them did so, with the current CEO Michael, studying accountancy and the middle brother law. The other brother, however went straight from school into the produce business but:

"Produce was in our blood and eventually my younger brother and I joined him." Michael Simonetta

And here they all are. From left to right, John, Michael, Tony and Vince.

Michael is now the CEO and John is the Chief Operating Officer. His father and Vince have retired from the company.

I believe that in the late 90s the company hit hard times and was facing bankruptcy, but it was at this point that they realised that:

"looking at other industries, PFA realised that financial value could be created from the processes involved in procuring, handling and marketing products throughout the chain. Innovation in process and procedure, as well as product, would be the cornerstone of PFA's success."

Alliances, both formal and informal were created with all the aspects of the produce industry from the farmers right through to the retailers, which is how they have been able to see where to deploy research, development, resources and how they have built their business so that they are now, by some accounts the major produce company in Australia. Perhaps an acknowledgement of this is the fact that Michael is (well I think is, but maybe was) the chairman of the Produce Marketing Association of Australia and New Zealand.

So quite a story. However, I did see that in 2017 there was a scandal around worker's conditions at the massive Two Wells tomato greenhouses in SA. I do not know whether this was resolved or not - you will certainly see no reference to it on the company website which, of course, implies that it's all one big happy family. However I did find a Seek review of the company which had 100% satisfaction with pay rates as higher than average, but only a 50% rating for recommending a friend to work there. It didn't say much else, so I really don't know. There are some 500 employees of the company. Who knows if all of them are happy.

But to finish - one of the things the company has been involved in is the development of new products - new foods. Like broccolini, which is a hybrid of broccoli and the Chinese gai lan. It's a Perfection trade mark. Well is it really? When you look at Wikipedia you see that it was first developed in Japan by the Sakata Seed Company which via a growing program in Mexico eventually partnered with the Californian company Mann Packing who actually have the trademark. On their website I do see that Perfection do not claim to have developed it. Their claim is merely to have found it in Japan, but it does have a Registered Trade Mark symbol against it. I must look next time I buy some in the market whether all broccolini has a Perfection label on it.

On the front page of their website they say:

"We travel the world in search of produce that’s tastier, fresher and fuller in flavour. And when we find the absolute best, we bring it home to grow and share with you."

So maybe this gives them the right to have a Registered Trade Mark here in Australia. They also claim to have produced the original grape tomato:

"The originalTM grape tomato (OGT) project succeeded through the existence of a value chain partnership, involving seed companies, producers and retailers."

And one of the latest of these products is Qukes - baby cucumbers which are specifically produced for lunchboxes. But I think the latest of all is Fioretto Cauli Blossoms.

Which looks to be another in the small is beautiful line of thinking. Pretty aren't they? Other products of theirs are Calypso mangoes, many different varieties of cherry tomatoes,baby capsicums, raspberries, blueberries and so many other things.

So there you go, a big success story, with maybe some dark secrets but then again maybe not. Certainly they seem to have been in amongst the revolution in fresh produce that has occurred in this country.

If you don’t have the passion, you don’t belong in this industry. It’s too consuming, and unless you’re passionate you won’t survive." Michael Simonetta

And this third generation Italian immigrant certainly seems to epitomise what Australia is all about.

And no you can't buy shares, it's a privately owned company.