HISTORY

Whitsunday Foodservice is a family owned and operated business servicing the Whitsunday area for over 25 years. The business started in 1984 as a local Milk vendor servicing the needs of Islands, Restaurants, shops and the local community from a small warehouse in Proserpine.

In late 1989 Proserpine Milk as the business was known moved from Proserpine to its current location in Cannonvale bringing with it a range of dairy lines which included Milk, Yoghurts and basic Cheeses.

During the 1990’s Proserpine Milk started to extend its range into Specialty Cheeses, limited frozen products and a small amount of Dry goods and smallgoods. During this time the range of lines carried grew form 100 to over 400 lines.

From 2000 to 2004 Proserpine Milk continued its growth at a steady pace along with the local Whitsunday area, we increased our ranging to take us close to being a broad line Foodservice Distributor.

In early 2004 the business made a decision to become a fully fledged Foodservice operation and in this time up to and including early 2010 we have set ourselves up as not only the premier Foodservice operation in the Whitsunday’s but also one of the most respected food operations in Queensland by our peers, suppliers and most importantly our customers and staff. Whitsunday Foodservice as we are now known pride ourselves on being the preferred choice for customers in our area, mainly because we are exceptionally customer service focused, we align ourselves with the best suppliers and products possible and most importantly we listen to both our customers and staff alike on ways to keep improving our business.

Below are some points and what we call achievements of our business over the past 6 years:

• In the past 6 years we have gone from employing 7 people from the local area to employing over 25 full time staff and we have also increased our direct sales force from 1 part time salesperson in early 2004 to 3 full time salespeople and a Sales Manager in early 2010. Amongst these staff we have 3 qualified Chefs and a full time meat specialist showing that we are committed to servicing and educating our customers in the best way possible.
• In early 2005 we changed our name from Proserpine Milk Distributors to Whitsunday Foodservice, we also joined the Countrywide buying group allowing us access to a more complete range of manufacturers and suppliers and also allowing us to offer better pricing in the area to our customers,
• In late 2005 Whitsunday Foodservice had increased its storage capabilities by over 500 pallet spaces and we updated our computer system to allow us to better manage our business not only for ourselves but our customers.
• During 2006 we increased our range of products up to 1300 lines, we became HACCP accredited and we also in late 2006 won the Countrywide award for most improved member.
• 2007 and 2008 were very sales driven years and over this time we increased our product ranging to over 2500 lines, we built another 1500 pallet spaces within our depot and by the end of 2008 we had grown the size of the business by over 300% from 2004.
• 2009 was not only a great year for sales and range growth but it was a year that we really worked on our infrastructure to better service our customers and to also help our staff to better streamline our business. During this year we updated all of our trucks and we branded all of our vehicles and uniformed all of our staff to better showcase our brand and to show from the outside the professionalism that we believe we have always had internally. In 2009 we started servicing the Bowen area, an area that we intend to continue to grow and give the service that we have shown in our local area over the past 25 years. In late 2009 Whitsunday Foodservice employed a Meat Specialist to finally complete our sales staffing and allow us to fully commit to our customers entire food needs.

Whitsunday Foodservice during 2010 will continue to set the standards in the Whitsunday area for food distribution continuing to not only focus on our customers and the service they require but we intend to continue the growth in knowledge and ability of our staff to allow us to always better ourselves as not only a supplier to this area but an employer of the local community. We are a very family orientated local business with the professionalism of a large company and the compassion and respect of a small family business.