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08 | iNarrabri Magazine
Feature
Interview by Chris Jollow
What does Paradise Fresh offer customers?
I guess we offer customers just a different way
to shop. You can shop online, it's quick, conven-
ient, you can have it delivered to your door, you
don't have to struggle with the supermarkets. We
have really great, fresh produce that hasn't been
handled a lot.
Customers have the ability to support a local
business with local workers and help the local
farmers out by giving the smaller guys a bit of a
chance to sell their local produce somewhere.
It's a fairly diverse thing as to what we offer our
customers but the main thing is the convenience.
Who are your customers?
I would say "time poor" people, especially moth-
ers with young kids trying to avoid the battle at
the supermarket. We deliver to a lot of mothers
around town at work and at home.
We also deliver to a lot of wholesale customers in
town, a lot of the shops, restaurants and cafes.
A lot of our customers are people that are op-
posed to shopping at the supermarkets. Some
people are opposed to supporting big chain
companies.
What is the most common feedback your
customers give you?
A common response is that we offer a great
service. You put your order in and it is delivered
to your doorstep.
Another is the freshness and the taste of the
produce. We had a lady come in yesterday
to give us back a basket that she won on the
weekend and she said "Wow, the banana tasted
like a banana", you know, and that's probably the
main thing, and when people walk in the door
they can smell the produce when they walk in
the door and they're like "Oh Wow".
People can actually call in to our warehouse
anytime Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm, they can
just walk in and buy.
What are aspects of your business people
don’t know about?
Maybe how far we go. We cover a lot of towns
from Boggabri up to Moree, down to Burren
Junction back to Narrabri and everywhere in
between. We can deliver to businesses, homes,
we can deliver out to farms.
If people are having parties they can give us a list
and when can get everything organised and just
hand it to them in a big box. They don't have to
get it organised from different areas.
Another thing is that we sell other local produce
aside from fruit and vegetables, we sell a lot of
local olive oils, coffees, the Back House Bakery
range, local honey that is made in Boggabri,
Lively Linseed products. And we are flexible. If
people want something, don't be afraid to ring
and ask, we'll do our best to make it happen.
How do your prices compare with supermar-
kets?
Across the board I think they are fairly standard.
Supermarkets are of course so much bigger and
have tremendous buying power so sometimes
they will have fabulous specials that we just can't
do but that is the nature of the business. I always
tell people that if they price out their regular
shop at the supermarket and price out their
regular shop with us, it would come back fairly
even a lot of the time.
How does your produce compare with super-
markets?
I would say it is fresher most of the time simply
because it is not handled as much as it is in
the supermarkets. It is picked on farm, packed
into boxes, freighted to us and goes into the
coolroom and we are the only ones that handle
it to pack it in to your order and it goes to you.
So it has been handled only several times, not
hundreds of times. It hasn't sat on a shelf all
day and had people picking it up. It has to be
fresher from that perspective. It's not going to
be bruised and it is not going to be touched so
much. This does affect the quality. If you pick up
an apple and don't like the look of it, you drop it
back down, bruising that apple, bruising the one
underneath it. And just produce sitting out, whilst
it might be in some type of cool storage, it's not
enough cold storage, you know, if you have cer-
tain product lines that sit out all day, they're not
looking real good by the end of the day.
What other reasons are there that people
should purchase produce through Paradise
Fresh?
Well I guess that we are a local business that
employs up to seven local people and even
more coming into Christmas when we are busy.
Paradise Fresh was started years ago to basically
give smaller farmers somewhere to sell their
produce because the big chains don't really buy
from smaller farmers because they can't supply
them enough. We take produce from all around
the area, from a little bucket of tomatoes from
a hobby farmer to a box of fresh broccoli from
Dorrigo. We try and pull as much produce from
the smaller players as we can. This is important
because a lot of those people have vanished.
There are not a lot of farms left anymore that can
do this sort of thing because they have nowhere
to sell their products.
What aspect of your business is the most chal-
lenging?
Knowing what to order and what people are
going to be wanting. We might go through ten
boxes of bananas this week and two next week.
It's a bit of a juggling act. That's the hardest
thing.
What do you enjoy the most?
I guess the huge challenge that it has been over
the last five years. It has kept me really busy
and has introduced me to a lot of people that I
otherwise would not have met, lots of customers,
lots of business owners. I guess the interaction
with people and just the challenge of trying to
keep a small business running in this climate.
What is happening in October at Paradise
Fresh?
This is one of our quieter months with the leadup
to the Christmas rush. As well as our regular
deliveries we try and use October to freshen the
place up, make sure our displays are stocked up
with all of our local products such as honeys and
things. Getting baskets in for all of our Christmas
gift hampers and we start getting an idea of the
places that are going to be ordering big lots of
baskets and things from us over Christmas time.
October is a good time to do a lot of planning
and it is also the time when we do a bit more
advertising leading into Christmas. It is a quieter
month but it is a month that we need to be qui-
eter so we can get organised because Christmas
is an extremely busy time for us.
fresh delivered
In an ongoing David v Goliath battle, locally
owned business Paradise Fresh offers a much
different way to shop for fruit, vegetables and
local produce.
The business was formed to give small farmers
an outlet for their quality produce and offers
customers a high degree of convenience with
free home delivery.
Not to mention their fruit and vegetables
actually taste like fruit and vegetables.
Local owner,
Sarah Bennett
tells us more...
photo: john burgess