Purpose and productivity

With a few years of steady growth under his belt and some recent investments made to continue that, Manuko’s Matt Hardie puts a positive story down to a few simple things. (Sponsored article and podcast.)

Manuko makes premium organic treats at a factory at Victoria’s Torquay. Sales began in 2012 from a one-bedroom apartment owned by Hardie, who says he made the first delivery on his bike and began with no capital, no connections, and almost no manufacturing experience.

“Having a core purpose and staying true to that,” is top of a list of decisions that worked out, he tells us. 

A distributor once suggested Manuko might source something other than organic ingredients, because, “people don’t care about that”. The son of an organic dairy farmer and healthy living enthusiast disagreed. 

Hardie recalls: “I was like, ‘Well, I care. That’s our core values. And actually our customers care. The people who are buying our products do care.’ 

“So it’s very important we stay true to that. That’s where the passion is and there’s certain things that we don’t want to compromise on.”

He also credits cutting costs where they didn’t add any value for customers – for example switching to pitted dates instead of unpitted medjool dates – as well as producing in-house rather than using contract manufacturers.

Hardie visited Northern Italy in May to train with chocolate chefs and to learn the intricacies of Gami chocolate machinery (a recent investment for Manuko.) Back home he is looking to work smarter with his small team using digital tools such as ChatGPT and Canva. 

Maria Christina, National Manager for Manufacturing & Wholesale Trade for Commonwealth Bank, says that recent research from the CommBank Manufacturing Insights Report has shown the majority of the businesses are still optimistic of the business conditions ahead despite the challenges. 

But of course this optimism is tampered with cautions as high energy costs and inflationary pressure presents the biggest challenges for our Industry. 

“As the input costs increase and in the face of weakened consumer spending and limited ability to increase prices from the manufacturers, they will have to turn to productivity improvements to maintain their margins,” Christina says of the findings in the report.

“In the report we also noted that around half of the businesses in our sample have a pretty good capacity utilisation rate of between 85 per cent or above; of course this is differing depending on the business size and the subsectors.1

“And some of the top initiatives by the businesses to improve their capacity utilisation rate include investments in people, reskilling their staff, reviewing their production KPIs, investments in digital technologies such as tighter inventory management systems, or digital adoption, and plant and equipment upgrades.”

In episode 96 of @AuManufacturing Conversations, Hardie discusses “having a midlife crisis early on”, giving up a corporate job aged 22, travelling the world and then deciding to make healthy treats, and Christina shares some of the intelligence from the Manufacturing Insights Report.

1. CommBank Manufacturing Insights Report – May 2024. visit www.commbank.com.au and type ‘Manufacturing Insights Report’ into the search bar, or follow this link https://www.commbank.com.au/business/foresight/reports/manufacturing-insights-report.html.

Things you should know

Guests featured in the podcast are speaking from their personal experiences only. As this podcast has been prepared without considering your objectives, financial situation or needs, you should, before acting on the content, consider its appropriateness to your circumstances. CommBank does not necessarily endorse the views of a particular individual or guarantee the accuracy of the information provided.

Picture: Matt Hardie and partner Inga (supplied)