Australian Pizzeria Opening.....help - PLEASE!!!

[system]

Hi,
I will be immigrating to Australia soon with spouse and we plan to open a small indie pizzeria in the Sydney area. We have opened one here in Asia (is quite successful), but Australia seems to hold better future for our family.

Can anyone offer us any help as far as where to start locating Australian health codes, building codes, small business help, small business loans, local and federal ordinances as far as small businesses go, purveyors, etc etc etc. Basically everything we need to open and run this business. We have a friend there but is in a totally different line of work so she cannot help much.

If you can help in any way, please do. This move will be happening within the month, so really need to do our homework quickly. I have been reading this forum for over a year and have found many great ideas, answers and some very caring people who like to help. Hope I can find some answers and maybe friends. I will keep you posted on our progress as we start, open and grow.

Thank You very much
Joe

 

[wa_dave]

Joe

I’m on the the other side of the country so I really can’t help that much but here are some openers.

Try the NSW Government website and their Small Business section. Here in Western Australia they have one which gives you all the help you need in starting businesses so I would expect NSW would have the same.

PMQ have purveyors listed in their classified sections so getting a copy of the magazine or contacting their office would help on this issue. Plateau Food Distributors claim to be the largest pizza supplier in their ads www.plateaufoods.com.au.
There is also Torino Foods www.torino.com.

As a Western side of the country I cannot vouch for any of these. In about Sptember there is the Australian Fine Fod Fair which is being held in Sydney and all suppliers will be there for supplys of food and equipment.

As far as ordinances it will be up to the local council you are in. Tell me what location you intend going to and I could find out what local authority can help, but I would assume most would be similar as they come under the main control of the NSW State Government. I was born and bred in Sydney and used to return there very often with my previous work before I lost my sanity and became a pizza operator.

There are a host of banks to go to regarding loans with ANZ, Commonwealth, Westpac and National as the prominent big four. Bear in mind business loans are not so easy to get especially without any prior history of banking with them. All banks seem loathe to loan to small businesses due to high failure rates.

Unless you have a really good business plan they will throw your request out the door. Mine was 20 odd pages and showed everything from our details, past employment, assets, business we were buying details and financials, advertising and promotion plans, forward estimates (5 year plan) and we still had a struggle, and my loan was only 25% of what my house was worth. We actually went for an investment laon instead of a business loan and it was much easier. Coming new into the country I wouldn’t like your chances of getting a loan from a major bank. You would probably get one from a lesser reputable organisation with high interest rates, but be very, very carefull.

Also bear in mind that the population in Australia is only just over 20 million with about 4 million in Sydney so the ratio of pizza outlets to available customers will be much lower and more competitive. The franchise / big ones of Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Eagle Boy’s, Pizza Haven would be more stronger there than in Western Australia where I am, so competition would be greater, plus Sydney has an old Italian heritage where many new Italians migrated there in big numbers in the early 1950’s so they would be more partial to Italian based pizzerias.

Hope this gives you some starters.

Dave