Grech & Borg, a family run fresh fruit and vegetable wholesaler, has been using Toyota forklifts across three generations.
Managing Director, Joanne Stone now runs the family business and wanted to put her personal mark on the forklifts by branding the fleet’s forklift pink. Our sales manager Michael Tsougranis was happy to assist and had the 8FG forklifts go through our paint shop at our Moorebank, NSW, headquarters.
Custom forklift livery is one the value adds we are able to provide as an optional extra and it’s exciting to see some of unique designs and colours our customers have taken up.
Grech & Borg has been operating out of Sydney Markets, Flemington, for 60 years and was founded by Joseph Grech and Victor Borg in 1967.
Joanne Stone is Mr Grech’s daughter and said her father and his partner started out in Haymarket, New South Wales, when they were only 16.
In those days, everything was loaded by hand. So you can imagine how a 16-year-old Joseph and Victor would have marvelled at an 8 Series Toyota forklift in action.
The business started using Toyota forklifts as soon as they were available. Joanne said they have always had Toyotas except for one cycle where we tried another brand.
About 10 years ago they tried another forklift brand but ended up spending a lot of money on fixing them. It was a common occurrence for them to have to take them to the mechanics and hire a rental forklift replacement for the day.
The experiment was a one-off trial, with the business returning to Toyota straight afterwards and they have only had Toyota forklifts in their fleet ever-since.
Grandsons of Joseph Grech, Brendan and Daniel Stone, also work in the business. Operations Manager, Brendan Stone, said the business sources produce predominantly from farmers in the Hawkesbury area.
He said if a customer wants product, they can source it.
Brendan said the business’ Toyota forklifts are active all-throughout their daily shifts and in terms of duties they have a pretty hard-working life.
He described the Sydney Markets as being a kind-of ‘mini suburb’ and that their Toyota forklifts take a seven-minute drive from their shed to the loading dock.
As the business has grown, Grech & Borg have continually added more Toyota forklifts to their fleet, starting out with two, and increasing their fleet to five over that last 12 years.
Joanne said a key reason the business continues to buy Toyota forklifts is our exceptional reliability and said they haven’t encountered a problem where their Toyota forklifts had downtime.
They keep their forklifts in great condition with Toyota servicing and tent to cycle their fleet ever five years.
Toyota’s reputation for reliability is a big reason Grech & Borg sticks with Toyota forklifts and that Legendary Reliability is a key part of our Toyota Advantage.
Toyota’s reputation for reliability is well-known at the Markets, where we have about 85 percent market share. On any given day, you'll see the prevalence of Toyota forklifts there.
Something unique to the Sydney Markets is that we have our service technicians on site at all times. No other forklift suppliers have an on-site presence at Sydney Markets so that’s a big advantage for our customers because if something happens to go wrong –or if it’s just servicing – we are already there, immediately available. That’s another big Toyota Advantage: More Uptime.
An extremely important part of the Toyota Advantage is World Leading Safety, and this particularly resonates with Brendan, given he is the ‘occupational health and safety guy’. He is a fan of our exclusive System of Active Stability (SAS) which comes standard on all Toyota forklifts and said he is always impressed by how stable they feel, describing it as a very assured driving experience.
Finally, another Toyota Advantage is apt for Grech & Borg: Delivering More Than Just Forklifts with a hot pink custom colour.
For years, Joanne wanted to complete the new company branding by making their forklifts pink. Some of the operators weren’t so sure about it and used to cop a bit of stirring when they were first driving around in them. Everyone got used to them, though and now Ms Stone has her own pink ‘label’ out there that says, ‘Here I am!’.
(Please note – images used in this story were captured early June 2021)
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Grech & Borg Managing Director, Joanne Stone (left) and Operations Manager, Brendan Stone (right) with their custom ‘hot pink’ Toyota Forklift fleet at Sydney Markets, Flemington.