The Fruit Delivery Business

Fruitbox

The Fruit Box is an Australian company that delivers fresh fruit to corporate breakrooms as a traditional alternative to the standard fare of unhealthy snacks. Ten years ago, the company had just two deliver vans, 280 customers and less than two full-time staff members. Today, the company has more than fifty vans, and delivers 600,000 pieces of fruit to offices across Australia each week.

The Age has up a profile with the owner Martin Halphen:

“I wanted to go into a business that would probably create some sort of suburban distribution system,” Halphen says.

He began scouring newspapers for businesses to buy, and settled on the first ad he saw.

“I just backed myself. It was blind courage, absolute blind courage. There was no sense in it other than blind instinct,” Halphen says.

The business delivered boxes of fruit to homes in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, but a chance conversation with a customer early on sparked a rethink that would dramatically improve the business.

The customer wondered if The Fruit Box would deliver to her workplace, and Halphen saw an opening.

He felt if one corporation liked the idea, others would be sure to follow. Mailing out a “less than amateur brochure” to 1500 CBD companies, his instincts were proved correct when about 40 customers signing up immediately.

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