There’s a family feel as you walk through the doors of well known Mount Gambier business J.O. Berkefeld, which this month celebrated its 90th year in operation.

The locally owned business is now in its fourth generation, having serviced the Limestone Coast and surrounding areas since 1933.

​The business has established a quality reputation as a distributor for a number of nationwide companies, providing goods to the industrial, hospitality and cleaning sectors.

​The company specialises in hospitality, packaging and cleaning supplies, as well as lubricants distribution, having become a staple supplier for so many other businesses in the region.

J.O. Berkefeld has also expanded into people’s homes, with many sourcing household goods from the store.

The business is currently under the stewardship of the fourth generation in brothers Simon and Matthew Berkefeld, who manage the Heriot Street premises.

The duo has taken over the reins from parents Kym and Vicki-Lee Berkefeld, who took over from Arthur and Joan Berkefeld, with the business founded by his father Julius Otto Berkefeld.

The business commenced operations in Mount Gambier’s Helen Street before moving to its current location in 1985.

Simon said his family was proud to have been able to serve the region for nine decades.

“We take great pride in the history of our business and acknowledge the hard work of the generations of Berkefelds before us who have enabled us to remain the business we are today,” he said.

“We are very conscious that a lot of businesses do not make it through 90 years of service and we are very fortunate to have had good local and loyal customers over a long period of time.

“We have even served multiple generations of customers, some of the businesses we supply have been with us for nearly the whole time.”

Matthew said the loyalty had carried through to the J.O. Berkefeld staff.

“Our staff have been wonderful throughout the years and that family feeling has carried through as we currently have a mother and daughter as part of our team,” he said.

“We have been very lucky with our staff over the journey, that is one thing my Pa has always instilled into Dad and us, staff play a huge role in what we do and we have been very lucky to have really good people work with us.

“That is hugely important to us.”

Simon said the business had evolved throughout the nine decades of operation.

“Our product range has changed significantly,” he said.

“We have had to evolve with the times and in more recent years there has been more of an ecofriendly packaging push from our customers.

“We have had to adapt our product lines.

“A lot of it is customer driven, even before state regulations changed regarding plastic packaging, we had a lot of customers who were quite conscious of getting sustainable packaging.”

Matthew said the business was proud to sell to all aspects of the business community as well as members of the public.

“We still get asked if we sell to the public, we are trying to change people’s perceptions, we are a wholesaler but public sales are more than welcome as well,” he said.

“People can come in and buy a package of 50 paper plates, right through to bulk orders.

“That is part of our business, we are family oriented and we want people to know that.”

Simon said he and his brother felt fortunate to be able to continue in the family business.

“From our point of view, we are proud of the generations before us, what they have been able to do, we take great pride in continuing on what has been created during the last 90 years,” he said.

“We always say we are aware of the need to adapt and change, but we also definitely do not want to lose sight of what’s worked for a long period of time, such as quality customer service.

“The personal touch can be lost online, we still like to have relationships with our customer base and provide that level of service that we have provided over the journey.”