Murray McCallum and Anton Masutti, the founders of Turners & Growers (T&G) export division Delica, are joining Australian fresh produce importer-marketer Valleyfresh.
McCallum has been appointed general manager of Valleyfresh. He will work with managing director Garth Lockyer from the Melbourne head office to help grow the business in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
Masutti will front a new New Zealand arm for Valleyfresh, managing the company’s imports into and exports out of the country.
Both McCallum and Masutti, who sold their shares in Delica to T&G in 2007 and left the company last month, will become shareholders and directors of Valleyfresh.
Lockyer, who founded Valleyfresh in 1993 together with Jamie Craig and has led its expansion over the years, said the recruitment of the pair was driven by succession planning, and on taking the business to the next level.
“Over the last few years I have been working to find people committed to the industry with a wealth of knowledge,” he explained.
“I have known Murray and Anton a long time and they tick all the boxes: they know the business back to front and they’re proven performers running their own business, which they started from scratch almost 20 years ago.
“I am not going to be here forever. I need senior people and they are senior guys. Importantly, as shareholders they’re coming in with skin in the game.”
McCallum is set to report directly to Lockyer for the next two or three years, but Lockyer is looking to become chairman in the longer term, with less of a role in the day-to-day running of the business.
Valleyfresh has significant expansion plans, according to Lockyer. It is setting up a Sydney-based operation to complement its headquarters in Melbourne. The company has taken on the lease on a warehouse in Homebush that will give it a purpose-built facility in New South Wales to handle imported fruits as well as offer third-party services such as ripening, prepacking and storage.
'We’re also looking to appoint a manager in Brisbane and there are some big expansion plans in the offing,” said Lockyer. “We’ll be looking at the strategic direction of the company, with m&a activity on the radar.”
McCallum said he was looking forward to a new challenge at Valleyfresh. Having founded Delica and helped to establish many of the business units within the company, he brings a great deal of experience not only from within the Australasian horticultural import and export industries, but also from around the globe.
“I still enjoy trading, but probably more so these days I enjoying building a business and building a team,” said McCallum. “I’ll be involved at board level with Garth and Jamie. The current Valleyfresh business is a magnificent base on which to grow. There’s an opportunity to replicate the current Valleyfresh Victorian model in New South Wales and Queensland. The challenge will be attracting the right people to drive this growth.”
McCallum will continue to work in tandem at Valleyfresh with his co-founder of Delica. “Anton and I work very well together and have done so for 16 years,” he said. “Anton has a huge amount of respect at a grower level in New Zealand, so we’ll look to build a solid base in New Zealand on the back of this.”
Asiafruit understands that Masutti, who was unavailable for comment, has yet to confirm his starting date with Valleyfresh.
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