Ken Cootes finished his baking apprenticeship at Ferguson Plarre in 1965.
He was just 17, and would continue working for the family-owned company for 50 years, right up until his retirement in November last year.
“I did my apprenticeship and never left,” he said. “They’re very good people, it was great, it was one big family.”
Mr Cootes began working for Raymond Plarre, and then for his son, Ralph, and was still around when Ralph’s sons, Steven and Michael, took on administration and production roles in the company in the late 1980s.
“Ken’s our latest induction to the Hall of Fame,” Steven, who’s now chief executive, says. “He worked for our father and grandfather.”
He said the company likes to make a big deal of its staff, many of whom have worked for the business for decades, met their wives or husbands there, and are integral to its success.
Michael, a pastry chef, walks around the bakery greeting everyone by name, clearly well aware of their roles in the business, a mean feat when the company employs 130 people, 80 in the baking department alone.
The Ferguson Plarre story is something of an anomaly nowadays, with few of Australia’s iconic food and beverage companies left in family hands (think Arnott’s, Foster’s, Rosella, Peters and Streets, Cottee’s, Vegemite and Uncle Toby, now all in foreign ownership).
The combined business started in the 1980s, when Plarre’s Cakes and bakery business J.A. Ferguson merged to become Ferguson Plarre.
But the individual histories date back to 1901, when Mrs Ferguson began a wedding and birthday cake business in Lygon Street, Carlton.
Then, 10 years later, Otto Plarre opened his first bakery in Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds.
Now there are 63 Ferguson Plarre stores across the eastern seaboard, selling as many as 200 different products, all made at their Keilor Park headquarters.
Steven says he and Michael began working for the family business as eight-year-olds.
And they’re still there simply for the love of the job.
“Mike’s down there making award-winning pastries because he loves it,” he said.
Just last month, the bakery was named a category winner for the best traditional pastie, a recipe perfected after a trip to the United Kingdom to perfect the Tiddly Oggie, the 800-year-old Cornish term for a “proper pastry”.
This gong is just the latest in a long line of awards the bakery has taken out, including prizes for the best decorated birthday cakes, hot-cross buns, cheesecakes, mud cakes and meat pies.
Steven said all their products are initially tried by their families.
“They’re our first line of taste testers. You can count on your wife and kids to tell you whether it passes the taste test,” he said.
He said classic Australian products are their most popular, with the traditional sausage roll topping the list.
“The 150,000 people who walk through the doors of our 63 stores are the final test.”
