Australian Makers

Snooza

Meet Brigitte Knight, animal lover and Marketing Manager at Snooza. Snooza is an Australian manufacturer of designer pet care and comfort products that help ensure a pawfect night’s sleep for Australia’s beloved dogs and cats.

An Australian family business, they have been operating in Melbourne’s Bayside suburbs for over 30 years, providing sleep stations for pets that are crafted to be both stylish in the home and functional for pets in all shapes and sizes. Brigitte says, “From Chihuahuas to Great Danes, we manufacture a product that suits every single one of them.”

Sustainability is core to Snooza Pet Products’ values. All beds are made to be durable and washable. The company only sources Australian steel for its raised beds, uses recycled drink bottles blended with Australian Made foam crumb for bedding fibre fill, and offers a repair and re-homing service that helps promote longevity and limit landfill at end-of-life. The Snooza Head Office is even built from a recycled fit-out to lighten its touch on the planet.

All Snooza staff are pet parents themselves, which means they appreciate the important role pets play in Australian families and have an intimate understanding of how to craft bedding and accessories that keep pets happy, comfortable and relaxed.

Wynstan

Meet Bruce and Andrew Turner from Wynstan. ‘Wynstan with a Y’ is a family owned and operated business that proudly manufactures one of the largest ranges of blinds, Crimsafe security doors, curtains, awnings and flyscreens in Yennora, New South Wales.

Visiting over 60,000 homes each year, Wynstan measure, manufacture and install each and every product, which proudly wear the highly trusted and widely recognised Australian Made kangaroo logo.

Founder Bruce Turner who still runs the company today, designed and manufactured one of the first aluminium security doors and saw great success in the 1980s. In the 90s, Wynstan opened the first pink showroom at Smithfield and saw the launch of the ever-so catchy ‘Wynstan with a Y’ radio ad which ensured Wynstan became a household name in Australia for affordable blinds, doors, shutters and awnings.

Today, Wynstan employs over 450 staff throughout NSW, Victoria, and even Los Angeles.  Wynstan continues to innovate and invest in manufacturing and operations here in Australia! So when shoppers buy locally made blinds, security screens and awnings, they can be sure they’re helping to retain vital skills and create employment opportunities within Aussie factories.

Real Flame

Meet David Wain, General Manager of Flame Products at Glen Dimplex Australia – an Australian Maker leading the market with beautifully designed and functional Australian Made gas fireplaces for the architecture and home-renovation sectors.

Real Flame is proud to bring Australian families together around its locally designed, developed and manufactured fireplaces assembled at the Glen Dimplex headquarters in Melbourne, Australia.

The company has fitted gas fires into penthouse suites and high-rise apartments, townhouses and suburban homes all around the country. Customers consider real Flame fireplaces as the centrepiece of the home, a welcoming place to relax and entertain with friends and family.

Real Flame's team works daily to ensure their products are safe, authentic and made to the latest specifications – some of the factors that have seen Real Flame become one of the most widely trusted and recognised gas fireplace brands in the market.

With engineers, sales, marketing and manufacturing staff working together in Australia to craft and market Real Flame fireplaces, buying an Australian Made building product like a Real Flame fireplace is a simple and impactful way to support the local manufacturing industry and help create jobs locally in Australia.

PROK

Meet Wade Guelfi, General Manager WA at PROK Conveyor Components Pty Ltd – a global conveyor components manufacturer with a long history of manufacturing quality conveyor components that are today recognised as the industry standard in Australia and overseas. PROK designs and builds components locally in Australia, found in most mines, ports and other large bulk material handling applications.

PROK has pioneered the development of quality conveyor pulleys and idlers in the Australasian market and is incredibly proud of its continued support of local Australian industry and local manufacturing whilst growing its brand globally. Today PROK is considered the largest manufacturer of quality conveyor products globally.

The PROK offering includes components with an emphasis on performance and reliability for light, medium and heavy-duty applications across the full range of PROK conveyor rollers, idlers, pulleys, and conveyor accessories.

PROK’s latest innovation is a new high-density polyethylene (HDPE) lighter, more durable roller. PROK HDPE avoids secondary conveyor damage in the event of a failure, reduces the need for unscheduled downtime that costs mining companies millions of dollars in lost productivity annually and features an iconically Aussie yellow and green wear indicator technology.

Wade says: “We’re a really proud Australian manufacturer. We really stand behind our brand and partner with the Australian Made logo and see how well that’s received. Not just in the mining market but in Australia per se, we saw that as a distinct advantage that complements our brand”.

Galvin Engineering

Meet Tim Galvin, Owner/Director and 4th generation member of the Galvin Engineering family, a WA based foundry and water solutions company specialising in tapware, water management systems, and fixtures for education, healthcare and public areas.

Galvin Engineering employs more than 80 people across Australia in its offices in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney. The company is accredited to ISO9001 Quality System and ISO14001 Environmental System.

Today Galvin Engineering has a strong vision to be a leader in providing safe and innovative water solutions for a healthier environment particularly in high risk and high care environments.

A key focus for Galvin Engineering is the transition to Lead Safe™ (low lead and lead free) tapware, a move it adopted in 2017, resulting in an extensive range of NCC 2022 compliant products now.

Galvin Engineering, Owner/Director Tim Galvin says he’s proud to carry the Australian Made logo on his family’s products communicating its Aussie authenticity and company values with his customers.

“I think it’s the fact that we are a family… it’s about our values… it’s about how we’re doing it. I get tremendous pride when I walk around the community and see our Australian Made products and the benefits they bring.”

Opal Diamond Factory

Established in 1974, Opal Diamond Factory is Adelaide’s oldest and largest opal, diamond and coloured gem specialist.

Their collection of South Australian crystal and white opals, Queensland boulder opals and famous Lightning Ridge black opals is one of the most extensive in Australia.

Amid the hot, red dust of Coober Pedy in South Australia’s far north, opal pioneer John Ryneš and son Mike Saj-Ryneš discovered a love for Australia’s national gemstone At the Opal Diamond Factory, the Ryneš family crafts jewellery, including bespoke pieces, from opals, ethically-sourced GIA certified diamonds and other precious stones.

The family craftsmen duo is proud to say they play small parts in thousands of stories - from love celebrations and special moments, to the creation of keepsakes and treasured gifts.

Handcrafting products with extra care, working closely with its customers and clients is at the heart of what the team at Opal Diamond Factory do. Whether it be cutting rough opals straight from Australian soil, or shaping elegant, custom jewellery in its design studio.

John and Mike are proud to be retaining an age-old craft locally in Australia with their beautiful, timeliness opal works that are certified with the Australian Made logo.

“The reason why we use the Australian Made logo is because it’s iconic… people see that gold kangaroo and straight away they know it’s Australian.”

Summer Land Camels

A story of one man and his favourite camel, Remi. Meet Paul Martin, Director of Queensland’s Summer Land Camels. In 2015, after a long career in stock and cattle management, Paul discovered a new passion for a breed that is often forgotten and most frequently found deep within the country’s red centre.

They say innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity. Today, Paul has rescued more than 500 wild camels from being put down in central Australia and has re-homed the docile creatures at his farm just south of Brisbane.

“There is a special line of camels that really are like Labradors, they want to come up and put their head on your shoulder. They are such a gentle, gentle animals and they seem to find a home here at Summer Land,” Paul said.

While it’s a little known fact that wild camels like Remi are gentle and placid creatures… one other fact about Summer Land Camels that is turning heads all around the country and in overseas markets is that natural Australian camel milk is also a rich resource with medicinal benefits.

From farm crafted camel milk moisturiser, lip balm and soap that is kind on sensitive skin. To dry milk powder, ice-cream, cheese and even camel milk infused vodka that’s winning awards and gaining traction in overseas markets.

Paul and his team are proudly “shining a light on the camel” and have renewed a sense of appreciation for these gentle creatures and his range of regenerative and ethically produced Australian camel milk products.

Paul says the best way to communicate the authenticity of his unique and genuine Australian crafted range is with the iconic Australian Made logo.

“For us the Australian Made logo with the kangaroo you know says it all. That and Crocodile Dundee are the two things that resonate around the world and that really say Australian Made.”

CSR Gyprock

Meet Paul Dalton, the Executive General Manager of CSR Gyprock – Australia’s leading plasterboard brand celebrating its 75^th year of manufacturing locally made building solutions that help bind together Australia’s building landscape.

As the first to introduce paper-faced plasterboard in the market in the late 1940s, Gyprock has facilitated the builds of many iconic Australian buildings such as The Sydney Opera House (built 1959), New Parliament House (1981 – 1987).

Today Gyprock is one of the most widely recognised brands in the country, producing a range of highly trusted and Australian Made certified plaster solutions for the building and construction industries, including plasterboard, pre-mixed and dry compounds, as well as a vast DIY range for Australian homeowners.

The phrase “Gyprock” has become the Australian moniker for plasterboard and is the brand of choice for many of the top architectural and building firms around the country. The Australian owned company works closely with specifiers and engineers to make sure that its product is made to the latest building codes as well as Australia’s high manufacturing standards. The Gyprock Redbook has become the go-to guide for those in the building trade.

Australia is renowned for being rich in vital minerals, resources and Gyprock is proud to source premium Gypsum, the key ingredient for plasterboard - a soft mineral sulphate that has been used around the world in plastering since Ancient Egypt and Rome - locally from both Western Australia and South Australia. Choosing to source raw material locally means that more dollars flow into Aussie industry and through regional and rural communities where raw materials originate.

For more than seven decades Gyprock has been proud to support the Australian economy by providing materials for key infrastructure projects and looks forward to helping Australia ‘build the foundations’ for a better country for many more years to come.