BUSINESS: GEORGE’S SMALLGOODS
DIRECTORS: GEORGE & OLYMPIA PALIAIKOS
CATEGORY: WHOLESALE EUROPEAN DELICATESSEN
LOCATION: COBURG MELBOURNE
BACKGROUND: George’s Smallgoods is a wholesale business which sells Greek, Cypriot and European delicacies. The business was established in 1975; George had started working in this industry from the age of 11 back home in Greece. When George arrived to Australia with his family he incorporated his business and what he had learnt and started his first business in in Albert Park, Melbourne. George then decided to build a larger factory and move the business to Coburg.
CHALLENGES OF THE BUSINESS: “In this day and age, I think a challenge of any business is keeping up with the modern trends; we are still in business and have high demand due to having niche and top end quality products because these are the key elements to stay in business. Also another challenge is the demograpphic changes, the Greek population has grown older whereby clients who buy our niche products are few and far between and getting the younger Greek and wider ethnic population to notice these products is getting more difficult.
INSPIRATIONS: “My inspiration comes from my memories of Greece and my goal is to provide the traditional flavours of our village. You could say our products are inspired by the true village style way of cooking and making food.That’s how we pride ourselves in making the products we sell.”
FUTURE PLANS: “We are always looking into new ideas and what we can do in order to further the business. We are a small business so there is limited time and man power to incorporate further duties or projects but we have recently updated our machinery to top end German technology in order to better our consistency of our products and in keeping up with new and advance ways of making the best quality products possible. We are also looking into making different styles of sausages in particular but we stock a large variety of products from around the world not only from Greece including German products and Italian products.”
WHAT DELICACIES CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE AT GEORGE’S SMALLGOODS: Some of the delicacies you will see at the factory that are made and sold week in, week out are: four different types of sausages which represent different areas of Greece and Cyprus. Firstly the Makedoniko pork smoked sausage, the Choriatiko which is another pork smoked sausage and contains orange peel in it, the Karamanlidiko which is a beef smoked sausage again from northern Greece and lastly the Cypriot smoked pork sausage made with red wine which comes from Cyprus. We also make a great German smoked sausage which is also made from pork, a kransky sausage, kassler ham which is made from pork eye fillet, Italian prosciutto and pastourma which is a cured beef with herbs and spices coated on the outside which is popular in all ethnic communities and now becoming more popular with other cultures due to television advertising cooking shows such as Masterchef and my kitchen rules. WHICH IS THE MOST POPULAR PRODUCT: “The Makedoniko.”
HOW DO PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT YOU: It is in fact word of mouth there has been no serious form of advertising, the clients that I have they have been coming to us since we started the business. Also clients who move on and sell their businesses have stayed with us so we have had the same clients for a very long time. It’s the reputation that the business has got behind it throughout so many years of operation. As long as the quality stays up the customers will always be happy.
CONTACT: George Paliaikos (Primary contact) ph: 0424 895 195 Or call ph: 03 9354 3518 fax: 03 9850 7402 email: info@georgessmallgoods.com.au