Supporting Aussie Made

Ever since taking over Maleny IGA over 25 years ago, Rob and Sam Outridge have made Australian Made products a focus, taking it one step further by investing in their local community and supporting local suppliers wherever possible.

And who wouldn’t want to support their neighbours? According to Rob, it keeps money circulating and good vibes flowing within the community and it’s what the customers want, which is one of the reasons why today they support over 75 local suppliers and stock over 900 local products on their shelves.

For many years Rob and Sam have made it their mission to heavily promote local and Australian made products, with their unique true blue ticket system. Designed to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to choose to buy Australian Made, all products that are produced in Australia have a blue shelf ticket. All blue shelf tickets that have a cow on them point to products produced locally on the Sunshine Coast.

During the pandemic Rob and Sam realised that their customers were even more driven to buy Australian Made and Rob and Sam further evolved their blue ticket system developing a distinctive hanging Aussie shelf ticket (locally produced of course!) that can be easily spotted in every supermarket aisle. Since they Introduced the eye-catching shelf tags, the demand for Australian Made products has grown by more than 50% showing that a little home-grown help can go a long way!

Rob says: ” At Maleny IGA we believe in promoting, supporting, and selling local goods and products. It’s something that we are passionate about, and it is something that our customers are telling us that they want to see more of in store.

“We stock so many local products and Maleny Dairies is a great success story. Years ago, after dairy deregulation, they came to us asking us to stock their milk, and if we hadn’t, they would have seriously struggled. Fast forward to now and they are stocked nationally at all the major supermarkets and of course IGA.

“It shows how IGA stores like ours across the country can help give Aussie made start up companies the leg up they need, and we are so proud to have played a part in their success, because they are local, they are our mates, they shop in our store. They produce great products and are great people and we love helping the entire community thrive.”

Some of the home grown heroes that Maleny IGA support are Maleny Dairies, Dancourt Trading, Barry’s Family Butchers, Maleny Bakery Bread, Maleny Cheese, Maleny In Bloom Flowers, Kenilworth Cheese, Montville Coffee and Pomadoras.