精东传媒

It鈥檚 a business recipe almost too good to be true.

You take three childhood mates;Jared Smith, Dean Martelozzo and Tom Simnadis,  give them a few years at uni to mull over their futures, and ask them to think of a business that would reflect their diverse skill sets. This business recipe started, like all good things do, as a joke. 

Having met on their first day of high school in 精东传媒, Jared, Dean and Tom enrolled at UOW in very different study areas. 

While Dean and Jared were both fairly confident in their respective commerce and science degrees, Tom, still unsure of his future, decided to study both. The double degree was an experiment. 鈥淚 still don鈥檛 know precisely what my purpose was, but it gave me the ability to rule out certain pathways,鈥� he says. 

The randomness of that double degree eventually launched a conversation about the inner workings of a distillery. 鈥淲e were joking around over some drinks that there was never going to be any relationship between his courses,鈥� Dean says. Tom, on the other hand, was completing a PhD on alternate uses of grains and believed otherwise, stating the very vodka they were drinking was made from a combination of raw materials, engineering, and commerce-at-scale. 

Listen to the full interview with Jared, Dean and Tom

Jared describes the conversation as a lightbulb moment. 鈥淲e threw the idea [for a distillery] around and woke up the next day still thinking it was a good idea. If you wake up and still think something is a good idea, then you might be onto something.鈥� 

Shortly after, Jared (who had since graduated with a double degree in Science majoring in Chemistry and a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering) went out on a limb and purchased some distilling equipment. He texted his new business partners their share of the bill, and Headlands Distillery was born. 

Inspired by the dual headlands north of 精东传媒, which Tom refers to as 鈥渉umbling,鈥� the trio founded the distillery on a set of basic values; take your time, make it quality, and be sure to give back. While Tom says the early years were made up of 鈥渁 lot of mistakes, and a lot of luck,鈥� Jared鈥檚 recollection is one of hard work by everyone involved. 

鈥淚鈥檝e watched Tom put in a 23 hour day and then wake up an hour later and do another full day. We had this hard work mentality that we were never going to give up. It wasn鈥檛 a question of whether we鈥檇 be successful or not, but rather how many hours of sleep would we need to lose to get there.鈥� 

As one of the few craft distilleries in the area, Headlands drew inspiration and unique ingredients from the south coast to create something no one else could. 鈥淲e鈥檙e all perfectionists, so when it came to the product it had to be of that level,鈥� Dean describes of the five year process it took to produce their very first bottle. 鈥淭here are six and a half thousand native botanicals in Australia. We use ingredients people haven鈥檛 tasted before; we have a whiskey coming out from the Illawarra Plum barrels which is something no one else is using.鈥� 

鈥淲e just have a really amazing culinary experience we can share with the rest of the world,鈥� Jared adds. 

The distillery is committed to giving back, both on and off the production line. Tom explains  how they鈥檝e tweaked the distillation process to be more energy efficient, while also sponsoring the UOW Women鈥檚 AFL team and sending 20 per cent of their profits to SpinalCure - a cause important to the partners after Dean broke his back in a snowboarding accident some years prior. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e always looking at how we can offset the less positive aspects of our product. We placed a strong focus on things like a bottle recycling program; we don鈥檛 use any plastic in our production; we鈥檙e looking into incorporating more solar power; we give leftover grain husks to our local farmer as cow feed. Jared has even designed a super efficient water recycling system so we don鈥檛 have to re-heat water. Not only does it benefit society, but it also benefits us as a business by reducing our costs.鈥� 

鈥淲e were also one of the first distilleries to start making hand sanitiser,鈥� Dean says. Jared re-engineered their distillery equipment in the early stages of the pandemic to meet demand. 鈥淚t was kind of horrifying. We had doctors and nurses and paramedics coming in asking for it because no one had any available. But we were proud to be able to quickly turn the spirit production off and use that alcohol to keep the community safe.鈥� 

_{Left to right: Jared, Dean and Thomas}

Tom can talk at length about traceability, product cycles, market behaviours and economic motivators. He鈥檚 even gone as far to deliver a bottle of vodka to the grain farmer who helped produce it. But all three agree, as 精东传媒 changed over the past decade, Headlands Distillery grew to fill a gap in the market.

鈥淭here was a growing frustration where people wanted locally made things. Local music, local drinks, local products,鈥� Jared says, noting that while they routinely sell out of spirits at their current production capacity, 96 per cent of all spirits sold in Australia are imported鈥攁nd the future is bright. 鈥淲hat if that was 50 per cent? There鈥檚 no way we could supply that.鈥� 

鈥淵ou can compete with businesses on one side but collaborate with them too,鈥� Tom adds, putting his commerce hat on. 鈥淧roducing a good product boosts the reputation of Australian spirits. If we can shift the balance to buy locally, fantastic. If we can raise the perception of Australian spirits to international buyers, things get a lot more interesting.鈥� 

鈥淪uccess is a moving target,鈥� Dean says of Headlands鈥� never-ending ambition. 鈥淚 remember when we sold our first bottle of vodka, we thought 鈥榳ow, we鈥檝e been able to sell something,鈥� now let鈥檚 sell a hundred. Then you sell a hundred locally, so you try and expand your geography. I don鈥檛 know if we鈥檒l ever be satisfied, but we鈥檙e always looking to grow and build our presence, and that really drives us.鈥� 

Looking back on their years at UOW, Dean, Jared and Tom attribute their time on campus鈥攊ncluding the uni games, ski trips and parties鈥攁s formative to their business and characters.

鈥淲ithout being here and still seeing [Jared and Tom] every day at uni, then I don't think that we still would be as good of friends as we currently are. I鈥檓 really stoked we could turn that into a business.鈥� 

鈥淲hen you go to other universities, the campus is spread all over a city. You might be studying science, but you鈥檇 never run into someone studying education,鈥� Tom adds. 鈥淯OW is a melting pot so it really broadens your perspective and lets you meet people you otherwise would not have interacted with.鈥� 

Plus, the group stayed true to the most important part of Headland鈥檚 ethos: put friendship above all else. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 good that we have a group business partners because if it were just two, we鈥檇 drive each other crazy,鈥� Jared laughs. 鈥淲e can cast a vote, and there are no hard feelings on business decisions. That helps us stay friends outside of the business.鈥� 

鈥淲e started with a really strong core, so no matter what happens, we still remember what it was like to be friends,鈥� Dean says. After all, the three have known each other longer than they haven鈥檛. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 always share opinions, but at the end of the day, we're friends and the business will never get in the way of that.鈥�