Third Generation Manufacturing Shows Australia Still in the Game

The Sydney Morning Herald recently profiled Headland customer Justin Montesalvo on why he will continue to manufacture products in Australia.

As an entrepreneur running two successful businesses (Express Metal Products and Patriot Campers) with the intention of opening a thirdfacility to cater to the US market. Although manufacturing in China is significatnly cheaper,  Justin believes that people are still prepared to buy “Made in Australia” products as they can count on the quality.

“Obviously from a costing perspective, if we’d wanted to go into the market at a price point we wouldn’t have a hope of manufacturing in Australia but that’s not what Patriot Campers has been about,” he says.

“I’m a third generation manufacturer … my grandfather came out here [from Italy], he’s always been in manufacturing … now I’m in manufacturing.

“Our customers are definitely prepared to pay the premium for the quality that we produce… I’ve spent a lot of time in America, looking at manufacturing facilities there, we’ve just been through a whole exercise, costings wise, into producing in Mexico to service the US market but we’ve canned that, we’ve decided that we want to keep it Australian made.”

To read the full article, click here.