Welcome to Redpath & Pulham Carriers Pty Ltd – Australian owned and managed since 1999 by Gordon Pulham & John Redpath. We started out operating from the Family room at home with 3-4 Customers and 5 Sub-Contractors specialising in bulk overflow freight.
Over the years we have diversified greatly from the bulk overflow freight to include things such as establishing a bagging facility, container packing with various types of meals, Stockfeed Pellets, Wheat, Barley, Oats etc bound for Tasmania. We also started exporting through our Shipping divisions in Melbourne, Geelong and Portland which cover ship to shed movements and equipment hire for our high profile customers.
Throughout the years we have expanded considerably, now boasting some 60 Customers using over 120 Sub-Contractors on a full time and casual basis. We do realise that without all the people and larrikins along the way we wouldn’t be where we are today.
We will continue to grow along the way in the future, but it always pays to remember where you started.
GORDON
JOHN
EARLY SEPTEMBER 1999
We set some ground rules and a format structure for our business and what our ambitions were as a partnership. We started out Operating from the Family room at home with 3-4 Customers and 5 Sub-Contractors, things began to move forward rapidly over the first 3 months.
2000
We formed a Company Redpath & Pulham Carriers Pty Ltd to be known as R & P Carriers, in February 2000 and we secured our first Depot in Cherry lane Laverton North. In this year we stared to diversify by packing soya meal and meat meal containers for export.
R & P Carriers was on the move, we now had 12 Sub-Contractors, 10 good Customers and a wealth of Overflow freight coming in daily from other carriers and transport companies in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. We were concentrating mainly on Bulk Freight and our reputation was growing as the movers & shakers of overflow freight in Bulk. We started doing general freight as well, requiring a fork lift etc. and we were quickly outgrowing our Laverton North site, as it was in the middle of a shared Factory Bank of 7 Factories.
AUGUST 2001
We moved to occupy factories 9-13/ 39 Chambers Rd with much more room and 500 metres of storage sheds, as Customers on the General side required Storage of their palletised freight and we needed to receive & despatch these products to various country and Interstate destinations. We also started our own bagging plant with storing and dispatching the products for major fertiliser companies.
Now with our Storage and Handling facility we are despatching pallets to Victorian Country, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide almost on a daily basis we had to get more Sub-Contractors to cover the general freight side of things.
2005
Our Foot Print in the Industry was really being felt as over the past 4 years we had expanded from our humble beginnings to having a Customer Base of over 40 and more than 70 Sub-Contractors on the books full time & casual.
2006
We had started another path for the business to follow. We began filling and carting Containers for the Tasmanian Market, this was all new to both of us, as it was something neither of us had done, so after several meetings and the purchase of a Grain Auger we were away. We started loading wheat, Barley, Oats, and Canola Meal etc. if the stock ate it we packed it into containers and sent it to Tassie for Tasmanian Grain Elevators known as TGE. This year we also started un-loading Fertiliser Vessels in Geelong, in our own right, this was a great boost for the tippers in our control, servicing several different customers.
2009
This year brought a new player into the Tasmanian Grain Market, Tasmanian Stock Feed Services (TSFS), this was to be an unknown quantity to us as to how much Grain was needed in Tassie. The requirements for this Customer went through the roof, so much so that, TSFS purchased the TGE brand increasing the volumes by 35%.
2010
R & P Carriers now boasting some 60 Customers using over 120 Sub-Contractors on a full time & casual basis. We had outgrown yet another Depot and we relocated to 16-18 Gilbertson Rd Laverton North in the Transport Hub. On the 3.5 hectares site we have 9500 metres of shedding. Our challenge now was how to maximise the space, we purchased another Auger and began filling up to 30 containers a day for Tasmania and other Export locations, we also needed a Straddle & Empty Container Fork Lift.
2012
R & P Carriers began a contract with a Major Customer for their Vessel discharges in Geelong as well as now doing the vessel discharges for their Portland Plant also.
2013
R & P Carriers secured a large contract with a Major Customer in the Victorian market, for the storage and distribution of their Soda Ash, filling both sheds.
2015
R & P Carriers did a review of itself and all the different facets of the Industry we cover and to our Credit we found that we still had our first 3 Customers on board to this day with one having sold out. We still retained a lot of the original work despite all of our growth over the years; we also still have four of our original Sub-Contractors engaged on a full-time basis.
2016
R&P Carriers have now been awarded a contract for Fertiliser Vessel Discharges & warehouse stacking of product as well as the loader and excavator supply.
We will continue to grow along the way in the future, but it always pays to remember where you started, in the family room with 3-4 customers and 5 subcontractors.
