Bread icon passes on the baton
ONE of the Gold Coast’s best-known and longestrunning family businesses has been sold to a company based in Toowoomba.
After 66 years in business, Harvey Marrable will leave Gold Coast Bakeries for the last time on Sunday.
After fronting up to the fragrantly warm bakery every morning, and completing the runs to the bank and post office every afternoon, 90-year-old Mr Marrable is finally ready to retire.
The Molendinar operation, which started as a single shop in Mermaid Beach in 1956, will pass to Toowoomba family company, Homestyle Bakeries, for an unknown pile of dough on Monday.
Mr Marrable said he was leaving the business, which celebrated its 60th year in 2016, in good hands.
“They’re nice people and they’re keeping on our staff and are going to introduce more business into the area,” he said.
ASIC records show a new Toowoomba-based com
pany, named Gold Coast Baking Company, was created on December 17 with the directors of Homestyle Bakeries, David Nicoll, Brett Pascoe and Lindsay Weber, named as its directors.
The shareholders are the directors’ wives Catherine Pascoe, Noelene Weber and Toni Nicoll, who have 40 shares each.
Homestyle Bakeries provides bakery products across southeast Queensland and beyond to schools, wholesale, fundraising and retail sectors and employs more than 200 people.
The Marrables have made a successful crust together since Mr Marrable and his wife Dulcie launched it in 1956, following his father James into the industry.
Bread was delivered by horse and cart around the Gold Coast from James Marrable’s bakery, which operated from the 1920s on Scarborough St, Southport.
In the early days, the couple made about 100 loaves a day, all of it delivered entirely within the Gold Coast.
Today, the company at its Molendinar headquarters
produces more than 30,000 loaves each day, which are shipped to customers in southeast Queensland and northern NSW.
Dulcie, who passed away 16 years ago, designed the company’s mascot, the “little baker man” in the ’50s, and the pair raised their children in a sprawling riverside estate at Broadbeach Waters.
The beautifully manicured estate, which graced the cover of the Gold Coast Bulletin Real Estate magazine in December, was sold by Warren Marrable at auction for $8m to local buyers last month.
Ahead of a staff sausage sizzle on Friday, an emotional Mr Marrable said he was happy to “ride off into the sunset”.
“I just want to say thank you very much,” he said.
“I’ve had a wonderful life, I was born on the Coast, I’ve lived my life on the Coast, and met some wonderful people that I’ll never forget.
“The people that have known me, understood me, helped me – particularly in my early years – treated me as their own son.”