Bulla Dairy Foods is an Australian dairy company that manufactures a national and export range of ice cream, table cream, yoghurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, and imitation cream under various brands. The business was established in 1910 and subsequently became a partnership among three inter-related families, who still continue to own and operate the business. The company's name was established from the origin of place in Victoria, Australia and the business has continued for more than 100 years. Bulla Dairy Foods has expanded internationally, exporting its products to 17 countries, as well as supplying their products nationally within Australia to supermarket retailers. The company employs more than 600 people across three manufacturing sites across Victoria in Colac, Dandenong, and Mulgrave and a head office and distribution centre in Derrimut, Melbourne. In 2015, Bulla Dairy Foods released a new campaign with the tagline "Unfakeable" to emphasise the company's Australian heritage.
History
Founding
Bulla dairy Foods was founded in 1910 by Thomas Sloan, in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, as the Bulla Cream Company. William Sloan, the brother of Thomas, owned a farm in Bulla and provided the milk used to make the cream. Thomas had developed a new method of thickening cream by burning wood, creating heat to pasteurise the cream in copper cans. The product was distributed by horse and cart, and the copper cans were draped with wet bags to keep them cool during transportation. In 1914, Thomas Sloan's brother in law, Hugh Anderson, became a partner in the business. In 1918, Hugh Anderson's brother Jack also joined Bulla Cream company. Thus the company was operated by three interrelated families. The responsibilities of the business operations were split among the three men, marketing and product distribution were the responsibility of Jack Anderson and Thomas Sloan, while Hugh Anderson was responsible for production. The name Bulla came from the origin of the place, where the milk was initially supplied by Sloan's brother. His farm was in Bulla, a town North West of Melbourne. The copper cans filled with cream were transported to Moonee Pond and had the label ‘Bulla’, so the company's name was unintentionally created.
In 1914, the first expansion of the company included the purchase of a butter factory in Drysdale, south west of Melbourne. In 1921, the business bought land to build their first factory in the Western district town of Colac and by 1922, the butter factory in Drysdale was sold and the operations and manufacturing were moved to Colac. Bulla had initially started the business in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne and in 1928, Bulla purchased a premise in Arden St, North Melbourne to become their new headquarters, this site would hold the manufacturing of the cream bottling plant and distribution and head office. By 1929, Bulla had begun to produce ice cream from their factory on Murray Street in Colac, Victoria. In the following year, an ice factory was purchased by Bulla in Colac that produced Regal Ice Cream. Regal Ice cream was produced by Bulla and in 2004, Regal ice cream was discontinued and rebadged as Bulla. The business has primarily focused on portraying the image of Bulla as a family business and in the late 1990s the company began to hire senior members of the business who were not descendants of the three founding families. In 2000, a 6,400 square metre site on Forest St was planned for construction in Colac for manufacturing their dairy products and the plant was operational by 2003.