I think it's so fair to say I've had a fascination as I know many of you have right around Australia with business, with various businesses. Well, by the way, we'll come back to calls too in just a moment. Those of you that are waiting, I promise you we'll
get you in just a tick. For a long time I had a fascination with businesses, and particularly family businesses, and the love of family business started for me as not only is an idea, but the idea of what a business inside the family that the family runs and gets underway, and then the fantastic heritage that often occurs out of family businesses. The one that jumps to mind for me because he was a friend and mentor, the great David Haymes from Hames Paint based here in Victoria
of course, or at Ballarat, wonderful family business. The kids run it now and it brings great joy to thousands of people that engage in work with that particular business. And now that one might be Cooper's Brewery in South Australia. That gives you the idea of scale. Really Now the consequence of that is to work pretty closely with having them on the radio to talk about some of the
history behind these family businesses. One, in fact, as I was doing some research, is a business called Cold Express. Two words called X the letter X. If you're looking for a word that starts with X express, thank you. They do remarkable things. Third party service, which takes the hassle out of perishable goods transportation on the line is the one and only Jack Dolosa. Jack is the chief operating officer.
Jack.
Good morning. It's a great story.
Really.
I mean here we are based in Listerfield right here in Victoria, and you are the director of operations.
What do we know about it? What do we need to know about it?
Jack? In terms of how it first started, So.
I've I've got my dad next week, Tony on. I thought I'd bring the big dog on and then far away.
Bring the big dog on, John, big dog, good morning. Are you fantastic? And thank you for being here?
John.
So presumably you.
Were ultimately responsible, as a youngster of creating this amazing, what is now a wonderful business.
Yes, that's correct. I started it in ninety eight with my uncle at the time and my wife doing some admin. Yeah, and we went from there.
What was the opportunity. Jack, What were you doing up until that time?
Well before that, I actually was born into business. My dad had a fruit shop and just going up, going to the market, getting up three thirty in the morning with him, I guess he instilled a good work ethic in me. And when he retired, I took it over his little shop, and I then extended it. I knocked it down, made it three times bigger, and eventually I sold that shop. It was in South Caulfield, and because I had the truck, I kept the truck. And then I remember the first first week I was home, my
wife said to me, what are you doing. You've been home for three days. I said that, yeah, but I've worked, you know, seven days a week for the last twenty years. I have can I have three days? And she came to with an ad newspaper people looking for, you know, truck truck drop trucks, truck drivers with trucks. So I answered the ad. I said to her, I'm just going to go and get this job, just thinking, well, of course I'm going to get it. So I went there and you know, they hired me. I had the biggest
truck in the fleet at that time. It was a twelve ton truck. And then I branched out and started doing it on my own. And a friend of mine, who are known from the market, said to me, you know, I'm supply. I've got a contract to supply coals with fruit packs. You know. You know, can you do my deliveries for me? And I said, well, yeah, I can, but what's involved? And he said it's got to be refrigerated.
And I said, look, I know nothing about it. Anyway, a few months went by and he came back to me and said, Johnny goes, I'm just you know, no one can do this thing properly. You know, there's four of us, we're all in the same boat. And he said, you know, I've got routes planned. He goes, just just take over because it's taken me away from my core business.
And I said. I was just talking to my auntie one day and I said, look, I'm going to start doing this and she said, well, why don't you get your uncle to do the admin and you do the operational side. So that's how I started. I started with one truck. I started. I actually started working out of his fridge, out of a twenty foot container.
Started twenty foot container. How many trucks now are.
Job now we've got around one hundred and forty trucks.
Wow, one hundred and forty trucks.
Do you know what the beauty of what you just said in that lovely background is the role your father played in this pretty humble beginnings.
I would have thought, oh yeah, yeah, you know, you know when my dad when he was doing deliveries, like they were doing home deliveries, he would, you know, to the local people that would come in, he would walk the box on his shoulders. Yeah, home deliveries because he didn't want to spend the petrol in the truck, in the in the van. Yeah, that's that generation. That's what they would do. Everything was about saving, saving, saving, because
they knew what it was like. You know. They they grew up in just post war, so yeah, they did it tough and there they were.
The real heroes.
They were the real heroes.
And there are ziggons of those stories right across Australia.
So john father came.
From where my dad came from, Strombly in Italy. He came over with his suitcase, owing his passage to someone who brought him over and he went to work for them in a fruit shop for I think it was about thirty or forty cents a week.
Back then, thirty or forty cents a week, just post war in Melbourne of course.
Yeah, yeah, I think he started off in Hawthorne and he worked seven days a week, never had a day off. And then he met my mum and he asked just for a couple of hours off so we'd go, you know, get her an engagement ring, you know, and he was told no, you know, you can't have any time off. So Dad said, look, you know, I've more than paid my passage back to you. Now I'm leaving. And he left and he got his own little shop and that's how he started.
That is fantastic.
You talk about those markets in those days, John, presumably you're talking Footscray.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Well Dad started off in the it was Victoria Market originally and then they moved over to Footscray and.
Those runs that you were doing in those days, getting up at two three o'clock in the morning and do those runs, I mean there was little or no traffic. You would have presumably gone out somewhere near Dining Road.
Yep, yeah, that's it. It was right next to Dining Road, the you know, the fruit market was there. I'd go in with Dad.
We'd go and buy.
All the fruit and everything. I'd help him load up his truck and we'd go back to the shop. We'd get back about six thirty seven o'clock, you know, we'd unload the truck, you know, or you know, and you know in school wholidays there, you know, i'd go and help him. But yeah, it was you know, the worst thing was I still remember.
The cold morning.
Yes, you know, your hands are freezing. And back then they'd get colie flowers or cabbages and the guy would stand on the back of his truck and he'd throw them to you, you know, and every time you caught one, you'd feel like your fingers were about to snap off, you know, because they were just full of water and ice.
In the depths of a cold Melbourne winter would have been chilli. He came, now, Johnny, I'm going to we'll do this break and I want to come back and talk to Jack. A young Jack would have been a little kid as he got any talent.
Yeah, yeah, look, yes.
Well let me determine that and we'll do that straight after this We've got John Delosa, We've got Jack Delosa. We're talking about this great straighted family business from Family Business Association, and we'll have more the other side of this. Your calls as well, come and join us. You might be somebody who's been out to those markets over the years,
foot screen markets, lots of memories there. I would have thought markets right around Australia one double three, six nine three, as you know, as I mentioned earlier, have this fascination family business right across Australia. Great Family Business Association. We've been talking to John Deloser, the CEO and founder if you like, of Cold Express. Chief operation operating officer is Jack Young, Jack the loser.
No pressure there, Jack.
So I guess in a sense you'd be when you hear those stories, and no doubt you've heard them before from Dad John and those very early humble beginnings of grandfather. Do they resonate with you in your day to day activities now as a leader inside this great business.
Yeah, I mean the value that you know Non Lord put through Dad, these Dad's put that through us. Kind someone of four siblings and three of us work in the business and it plays a huge impact on how we carry our business and our culture that we built
in our family business. If you look at like you know now that when people come to see us for meetings at our head office, we have literally as you walk into our meeting room, we've decked out well I like to call the root room, which is basically, you know, all all the memorabilia, like the roots, the roots of the business.
Okay, different generations things make different things they do.
So that's that's that's where that's where everything starts from from us. So that's it's in our business and run our business.
All of a sudden, many of us want to come around and visitor.
What I'm saying, I gotta I gotta think that.
The the heritage of the You say, the siblings, and I guess do you look to the next gen or is it too early to the next gen?
Do the kids come in as you.
Did Jack when you were little.
Do the little tackers now coming grandchildren John presumably, and just have a look around.
What's grandpa doing, what's dad Jack doing?
Yeah? Well Jack's got three three girls.
Yeah, I've got three girls under three, three, under three, three, two and six months.
So that's that's They're a long time away. From that, but they do like jumping in the little Mercedes benz By.
Cars and driving them around at shows and things. Yeah, so they're the sale of the century girls on those vehicles.
I guess the sale of the century girls on the That's very funny. So to either you John and or Jack the challenges in the current climate, what do they look like?
How do they show up for you?
Because this is not this is because you've been doing well.
This doesn't guarantee the next five, ten, fifteen years can instantly be really come to it's a working great question.
Great question because you know, this year we've seen a number of really good transport companies, companies in our industry. Family, yeah, family.
That have been around for fifty odd years.
Well Don Watson's was around tiventy seven odd years, and they did it right, you know. They they treated their staff right, they everything was done right. It's just it's almost like it's a race to the bottom. People undercutting it's it's it's hard, especially with all the new taxes and you know, land tacks. You know, I could spend half an hour talking.
About it's a killer.
It is. We've gone from a few years back on one of the sites eighty three thousand dollars for the year to I just got it a few months back, four hundred and two thousand.
Well that's just bulltish yep.
Yep, And that's you know, how does a family you know pay those things? I mean, we have to pass the class on and then people wonder why their groceries are getting expensive. You know, the government should be looking after businesses because if they give us tax concess, get rid of payroll tax, which is another story, get rid of that. Let us you know, if we had more money, we would actually what the businesses do. Family businesses, They
reinvest in their own business. They put back into the community. And that's what some people just don't understand. The answer is not tax the businesses. You know, com people think.
Oh, you've got a business, you're you know, you're raking it.
You know, you're making so much money you don't know what to do with it. So many businesses that I know the principles don't even take wages.
They don't.
And my great friend and mentor I mentioned earlier was David Hames. I think you would probably know the Hames family from Family Business Association. One of the things David would say, you've got one hundred and forty trucks, one hundred and forty families just in that sector of your business, one hundred and forty plus families that rely on you to continue in business.
Yep. Correct.
And then there's fifty odd stormen yep. And then there's all the office staff and yeah, yeah, about to fifty yeah, two.
One hundred and fifty different families who have still got to pay operating and working with you very closely, presumably proud to do so.
And they got to pay school fees.
Yeah, and put food on the table.
And put food on the table. It's a lovely story.
I wish we had a bit more time, except to say the challenges for the future.
Could you see a clearing? Is it about? Is it about having?
One of the reasons we do this is to give people a sense of what the power that family business in Australia has.
Yeah.
Look, look I've got my ways of doing things a little bit old fashioned. Probably Jack's got his way of doing things, which I don't always agree. I mean, he came to me a number of months back he said, our dad, you know, I want to do a podcast. And I laughed at him and he goes, do you want to do it with me and you Alex, you know the other the other boy that's in the family, that's in the business. And I said, no, no, you
guys go ahead and do it. And you go, Dad, why wouldn't you want to do something with your two sons, you know, the old guilt trip, the old Italian guilt trip. And I said, yeah, okay, we'll do it. And yeah, I've got to say I'm actually enjoying it. Where you know, we just talk about businesses. It's it's called the c X Show.
Yeah, it's all about put showing a lot of family businesses that don't get the spot while they deserve.
They do great in their communities.
It's not about the big guys. We like to focus on the smaller, the smaller to medium sized businesses that always get overlooked. Yeah.
I think in this danage, you have to be folks.
We have to be doing things differently, and you know where that's a lot through tech innovation as.
Well as you know, marketing.
I think you really need to be out there doing that sort of stuff today's days.
John as founder CEO and then working with Jack, Alex and the rest of the family, do you, at some point in your own mind say, at what point do I let go? That is a challenge of family business across Australia.
You know, Conny, you know I'm laughing because I said that two years ago. I said, you know, I'm going to step back. You guys are going to you know, takeover. I'll come in maybe once every couple of weeks. And I started scaling back to three times a week. And then I went overseas with my wife. And while I'm overseas, Jack said to me, Dad, you know the block just
on the other corners come up for sale. So we ended up buying that other block because we'd run out of room where we are and come back and now all of a sudden, I'm seven days a week again, so getting that off the ground. But that's it's up and running now. So yeah, I guess from a forty foot container, we've got just under fifty thousand square meters now across the two sites in Roval. We're in Robal.
Yeah, you are in Roval, which is the area to be for that is sort of a business. I can't thank you enough for both staying up nice and late and do this and we wish you well in the future. You and I have not met, but I hope we do at some point.
John and Jack, Yeah, I'm sure we will.
We will wish you well with the success of the business, a continued success. It doesn't come easy, as the old song goes, but it's a brand that is very, very important. Cold Express just what I've been talking of a text. How important are the drivers to you? And have we got enough drivers? And what are the challenges around drivers as we need them to love them today?
Yeah, look, it's you ask any person in business, the biggest challenge is getting good staff. Prior to COVID, You know that they were really all the stuff we had terrific. Then COVID hit and we could not get people to work.
A lot of them had to go back overseas because you know, we have a lot of people from overseas working and all of a sudden there's a shortage, and the ones that remain were basically well, no, you know, you tell ask them to do something, and so no, we don't want to do that, and we couldn't move them on because we needed them. And that still of like took a good two to three years to get on top.
Of its definitely gotten better now, but as data saying, the quality is and is there before that, But that's something that we're we're working on and we have a pretty.
Good The quality where you've got now is good because they might be listening, they.
Will be on night shift and what are they talking about. I'll let you both go great to talk them. We'll do it and catch up at some point down the track. I hope that's John Delosa and Jack Delosa. What a This is a family a business associated It's called Cold Express Family Business Association.