35 Maxum Foods

Dairy supplier Maxum Foods boasts one of the highest revenues on this year’s Smart50, pulling in over $150 million over the last year with 110% growth over the past three years.

Founding trio Ben Woodhouse, Dustin Boughton and David Russell founded the business back in 2003 after spotting a gap in the market left by slow-moving multinational dairy suppliers, with Australian SMEs wanting for next-day dairy ingredient delivery.

Though the company services over 950 customers these days, starting out in the dairy industry as a new business in 2003 was no easy feat.

“The dairy industry was already well established, and distribution channels were already firmly in place. As a startup, we found it difficult to penetrate this market and convince larger companies to supply dairy ingredients to us,” the founders say.

Breaking through was just a matter of ‘persistence pays off’, say the founders, who’s dogged pursuit of success not only grew into a thriving business, but embedded ‘never give up’ as one of the company’s core values.

Maxum operates in an industry which has seen some significant change over the past 15 years, and the founders reflect on the early days of the industry where skim and low-fat milk was all the rage. However, with high-fat diets coming back into vogue, the business has had to quickly adapt, even battling through a global butter shortage brought on by the heightened interest in high-fat foods.

Spurring on Maxum’s 110% growth has been the astonishing growth of the business’ animal nutrition arm, which has achieved 343% growth in just four years, selling 2671 tonnes in the 2018 financial year.

According to the founders, having a strong, unified company culture has paid “dividends” for Maxum.

“Our company culture is what has shaped our brand identity and firmly positioned us in this mature market. Within Maxum Foods we have a fun-loving culture which also focuses on living a healthy lifestyle,” they say.

“We provide every opportunity and support and encourage all our staff to be physically active, fit and healthy.”