To be part of a business which has been around for more than a century is “pretty cool” says Vennings manager David Venning, one of seven family, owner-operators of the bulk grain-handling retailer in Kadina.
David’s great-grandfather Bill Venning established the business in 1904 as a blacksmith and over the years it has been a distributor of fuel products, an electrical store and then diversified into farm machinery.
Vennings manufactures and retails a range of products and tools for the rural industries such as augers, which are cork-screw spirals in a metal tube for lifting grain from the ground to an elevated height, field bins and silos. Vennings began manufacturing its signature augers in 1951 and boasts 70 per cent of the auger market in South Australia. To date, more than 4,000 augers have been made and sold in Australia and exported overseas to countries including Iran and Iraq.
Vennings is one of the South Australian Business Chamber’s longest-standing members, joining the chamber of commerce in 1958. Find out more about the family-owned and operated business in this week’s member profile:
