Kitting out campers for 20 years
KEEN campers may not know the name Supa-Peg, but they probably appreciate the strength and quality of the products the Yatala-based company has been manufacturing for more than 20 years.
Supa-Peg supplies tent poles, pegs, pole fittings and awnings to stores such as BCF and Tentworld and camper trailer manufacturers Drifta and Patriot Campers.
The company has been so successful it was recently bought out by Brisbane-based Callisto Capital, which buys and grows businesses.
The company has its roots in Captains Industries, run by David Cook from 1974 to 1990 in Slacks Creek before it was moved to Yatala.
The business sold metal work to furniture makers but found the work drying up by the mid-1990s.
“As the landscape changed, the likes of Super Amart came into the market with imported furniture and those guys (the independent furniture makers) started to die out,” David Cook’s son and general manager Adrian explains.
“My dad was a practical man and keen inventor and started making camping accessories such as pegs.”
The first of these was the press metal peg.
“My father was a very good inventor. He always used to invent new products and experiment with different things,” Adrian said. “The press metal peg was a good all-round peg that packed neatly.
“At the time there was not anything like that around, it was all simple wire pegs.”
In the year 2000 the business, now renamed Supa-Peg, moved in earnest into the camping accessories market.
Its product range expanded to include galvanised tent poles and from 2012 awnings for 4WD vehicles.
Adrian, who had left and rejoined the business several times from 1996, took on the position of general manager in 2017.
He joined from Austral Masonry where he acted as operations manager, learning about lean manufacturing in the process.
“Since my father had passed (in 2012) and my brothers had left it was struggling a bit,” he said. “I had come back to help put it into shape again.
“I identified a lack of marketing, there were quality issues as well and problems with updating equipment,” he said.
Adrian said besides a focus on lean manufacturing, which has to do with cutting down on waste in the manufacturing process, he also was able to bring expertise in plastic injection moulding.
He said Supa-Peg’s strength was its ability to turn around small batch custom jobs quickly.
One it is currently completing is the Gazebo Saver – an injectable plastic mould product that is used to prevent water pooling in the top of gazebos.
Adrian said the new owner of Supa-Peg has shown faith in him by keeping him on in the position of general manager.
He said the decision to sell was made by his mother Carol who has decided to retire and release equity tied up in the business.
Adrian said the future focus would be on expanding into making accessories and awnings for other markets.