No sign of Jill's Cuisine production slowing down as Jindera business prepares to grow

As a young Riverina farmer’s wife, Jill Davis had no idea about the juggernaut she was about to launch when she got together with a group of local women to make relish.

“The whole thing just started as a bit of fun,” Jill said.

“We’d come from England and were farming rice, wheat and sheep at Tocumwal. A group of wives said, ‘Come on, we are going to make tomato relish’.

“I thought, ‘What is tomato relish?’ I had no clue what they were talking about!

“Anyway, off we went; one farmer had tomatoes, another onions and we got all this stuff and made all this relish and I thought, ‘Oh, this is amazing.'”

That was more than three decades ago and today the Jindera producer supplies the country with her traditional tomato relish and chilli tomato under the well-known Jill’s Cuisine label.

Jill continued with the relish making, supplying friends and a few local stores in Tocumwal, Deniliquin and Berrigan but demand grew and she was soon supplying 38 independent stores.

But there were bigger things in store.

“I was doing a ‘tasting’ at the deli in Albury’s West End Plaza and a man came in, had a taste and said, ‘Great taste, great price, you should be selling to Coles,'” said Jill.

“I didn’t think that was possible, I was too small to be supplying Coles, but this man said he was a producer and explained he only supplied a select number of Coles stores and I could do the same.

“So, I went home and said to Robin, ‘I’m ringing Coles’. He said, ‘You’re mad!'” laughed Jill. “But I thought the worst they could do was say no.”

She soon found herself in Melbourne chatting with one of the executives.

“I was there 20 minutes, and he said yes please, thank you very much and how many shops would you like?

“I said, ‘One please’ and he laughed and said, ‘We’ve got 500 stores, which one of those would you like?’ He thought it was extremely funny.”

The business won the best in-store execution award at Coles’ inaugural supplier awards night with 1100 in attendance.

Jill recalls a night she describes as “the sublime to the ridiculous”.

“We were on a table with Coca-Cola! They were great fun. One mentioned he loved relish so I popped out to the car, got some jars, and gave them one each, which they proceeded to put on their very fancy dinner!

“Then, when my face came up on the screens around the room as a winner the whole table jumped up and cheered loudly. It was quite overwhelming.”

Today, Jill and her husband Robin produce 1100 jars a day, five days a week, and distribute them by the pallet load from the small factory on their rural property 15 km north of Albury.

You’ll find it in many independent stores and tourist attractions as well as at Harris Farm Markets and today, Jill’s Cuisine is available in 854 Coles stores around Australia.

It’s a success story on many levels representing growth without greed and the importance of good old-fashioned service.

The relish retails for around $4 a jar, one of the cheapest in the range, says Jill.

“People keep telling me I should put the price up, but my philosophy has always been to keep the price down, get on and sell it and work on the turnover,” she said.

“Don’t overprice it and only have customers just buying it as a gift or for a hamper.”

With business going strong, there are plans for a second vat to be installed so that Jill and Robin (both in their 70s) can move to a three-day workweek.

“It’s a great business because it’s just us in the mornings doing the manufacturing and we can knock off at smoko,” said Jill, explaining with a wink that it was about working smarter, not harder.

“With our new plans we will only work for three days and have the rest of the week off. We’ll also be making six lots instead of five and increase production from 5500 jars a week to 6600, in less time.”

“If we are already cooking one lot, why wouldn’t we double it?” said Jill.