Just Onions History | From Oranges to Onions
Just Onions is a member of Onions Australia.
After School Oranges
Alan Thierry grew up in the 1970’s. After school and weekends meant packing oranges manually in the packing shed that was part of the family business. In this environment the meaning of hard work was learned very early in life. As the family business expanded, roles were developed for each of the six Thierry sons. Opportunities were there for the taking, but required a lot of hard work. Citrus was our life.
Pursuing Other Horizons
After leaving the family business in 1981, Alan had employment in the fruit and vegetable industry in a variety of roles, including transport, provedoreing, wholesale purchasing and retail sales, providing an array of invaluable ‘on the job’ training for what was to become a life of self employment.
Grabbing an Opportunity
In September of 1985 an opportunity to purchase an established business – wholesale distribution, was accepted. Part of the business entailed pre-packing onions, manually for two of the smaller independent supermarkets that were part of the client base of the business.
Soon other industry people, mostly independent supermarket buyers, saw some of the packed products and asked could they also purchase them for their stores. A backyard operation was born. Onions purchased in the Melbourne Wholesale Market were brought to Geelong and packed into 1kg net packs in the garage of a suburban house.
Renting Some Space
Nobody would have ever thought that having a few hundred kilos of onions, being packed in a suburban garage would grow so much, but growth in the first few years was phenomenal. Soon some space from Geelong Citrus was utilized, but this too was outgrown, so a suitable building was rented to house the growing business.
A New Identity Was Born
Rapidly the original purchased wholesale business had been overtaken by the offshoot onion packing side of the operation. The name ‘Just Onions’ was officially registered in 1990. Currently 22 years young.
Yumions have become a sought after brand by our valued clients, who have come to rely on this brand to market what was once a anonymous product.
