Entrepreneur Dick Smith on two-week road trip to Queensland

IT’S been a rough couple of weeks for Aussie entrepreneur Dick Smith. He’s taking a break and heading to Queensland … with plans to go right off the beaten track.

YOU can’t blame Dick Smith for wanting to take a break.

The serial entrepreneur-turned-political activist is poised to zip off for a two-week road trip to Cape York and other far flung reaches of the Sunshine State.

He’s even hoping to climb a rock spire known as The Monument in the small locality of the same name in the Cloncurry shire and check out Carnarvon Gorge on the return leg.

The four-wheel-drive odyssey with a few mates, including adventurer Greg Mortimer, follows Smith’s announcement last week that he was pulling the plug on his foods group.

Smith, 74, launched the business 19 years ago to help Australian farmers and manufacturers.

He managed to generate more than $480 million in retail sales over that time and donated $10 million-plus to charities across the country.

Illustration of Dick Smith by Brett Lethbridge.

But Smith said the business, which will be slowly wound down over the next 12 months, could no longer compete with the relentless pressure coming from supermarket insurgent Aldi.

“Its ability to reduce overheads and cut prices by using less staff in their stores and replacing the home grown products with less expensive overseas suppliers is the main cause of this,’’ he said.

Dick Smith will wind down his food brand over the next 12 months.

“It is clear that it will become more difficult for small and medium-sized Australian-owned food processors using Australian produce to compete in the current marketplace.’’

Smith described Aldi as “a secretive German company’’ that had grown to become the nation’s most trusted brand.

Along with Costco and Amazon, he predicted that Aldi “will completely change the face of retailing in this country’’.

BACK IN BLACK

THE Queensland Cricketers’ Club is finally back in the black after years of bleeding red ink and suffering management upheavals.

The Gabba-based outfit has just reported a $239,098 net operating profit for year to the end of March, a big turnaround on the $358,880 loss in 2017.

Similarly, the surplus reached $131,829, a vast improvement on last year’s $856,027 deficit.

Club president Dave O’Brien, a bean counter at Moore Stephens, told City Beat yesterday that the $1.7 million renovation of the club helped spur record turnover and a 13 per cent jump in membership.

“It’s a nice change. It’s been a while coming,’’ said O’Brien, who joined the club in 1989 and ascended to the top spot last year.

“The model for many years was slowly dying and the revenues just weren’t coming through.’’

With a flash new function space, the club was able to double its gross earnings and benefited from the Ashes in November.

Strong ticket sales and cost controls also flowed through to the bottom line.

The year ahead is also looking good, with the pipeline of confirmed functions “already extraordinarily high,’’ O’Brien said.

But challenges remain. While the venue now has greater appeal to a younger, female and corporate crowd, O’Brien acknowledged that there’s plenty of competition out there and no Ashes again for a few years.

HUGE MONTH FOR RADIO BOSS

It’s been a huge month for Southern Cross Austereo boss Damon Rielly, who oversaw Brisbane for nearly two years and has now been promoted to looking out for all of Queensland.

Rielly has unveiled plans for the broadcast group to relocate from its North Quay home to The Barracks in June next year in what’s been described as one of the most technically complex moves in Australian radio history.

Two stations and 125 team members will make the jump with no break in transmission.

In addition, Rielly just locked in the breakfast team of Stav, Abby and Matt through 2020.

In case all that wasn’t enough, he and his missus welcomed their fifth child, Florence Mary, on Friday. We’re exhausted just thinking about it!