Leura Mall, circa 1949. Image courtesy Colless Foods archives.

The Colless Foods wholesale dynasty began with the arrival of Charles 'Chas' Colless in the Blue Mountains circa 1930. He set up a wholesale fruit and vegetable business and a chicken abattoir at Leura Mall and by the 1940s was supplying Katoomba’s guesthouses with fresh groceries. Tom Colless bought his father's business in 1955 and set about expanding it, purchasing his first refrigerated truck in 1960, introducing a line of frozen goods and selling to food service distributors out west. By the close of the ‘60s, Tom had established depots at Bathurst and Mudgee and developed a range of dry, frozen and fresh products for the hospitality industry.

Charles Colless. Image courtesy Colless family archives.

In 1970 Tom co-founded IFFDA, now called NAFDA (National Food Distributors’ Association), an entirely Australian-owned and operated group of food distributors, and took the chair as its founding president. NAFDA was developed by a group of family-run food distributors to challenge the might of the multinationals. Its philosophy is to provide unrivalled customer service, quality produce and value for money, and it currently has more than 60 food distribution outlets throughout Australia and services more than 33,000 customers nation-wide.

Tom Colless in a 1988 Colless Foods catalogue. Image courtesy Colless Foods archives.

Colless Foods eventually outgrew its Leura premises and in 2006 the business moved to its present site: a state-of-the-art, 2000-pallet storage and distribution centre at Katoomba. Temperatures are controlled from minus 24 degrees Celsius to ambient, and the centre operates a fleet of 20 vehicles. Built from PIR (an entirely biodegradable and fireproof material one-third more insulating than Styrofoam), the site was also created with environmental concerns in mind, with a focus on minimising waste and encouraging recycling and compost. Rainwater is collected and used for all gardening and cleaning needs, and overflow is directed via a dam back into the creek. Colless Foods also runs a voluntary oil-recycling service, collecting and paying for used cooking oil sold to customers and taking it to be recycled into biofuel.