What saved our iconic fishing company: the Alvey Reels story

When Bruce Alvey made the heartbreaking decision to shut his family’s 98-year fishing reel business last year, what happened next was not what he expected.

Bruce Alvey, managing director of an iconic fishing tackle company with one of his no nonsense, unbreakable, timeless masterpieces, the Alvey Reel. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

WHEN Bruce Alvey made the heartbreaking decision to shut his family’s 98-year fishing reel business last year due to sinking sales, anglers around Australia had a collective meltdown.

Within hours of posting the bad news on Facebook, thousands of people were on the social media platform pleading for the business to remain open and asking where they could order a new reel to help.

State losing iconic family businesses

Alvey Reels nets new investor

“Eventually 700,000 people viewed the post and we had 3000 personal messages,” says Alvey, the great grandson of Charles Alvey who founded the business at St Lucia in 1920.

“We thought we would have a bit of a reaction to us closing, but it took us 12 months to fill the extra orders and we had to put on additional people in the factory. It just shows the power of the Internet.”

Bruce Alvey was amazed by the power of the internet. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

It also showed the power of nostalgia. Many of the messages on the company’s Facebook page were from people who remembered their grandfathers fishing with an Alvey Reel.

“We had people saying their daughter was pregnant and they had to get a reel for the baby,” he says.

These days, Bruce Alvey and brother Glenn are looking to the future.

The outpouring of public support saved the company, which is listed by the Queensland National Trust as an icon, up there with the Ekka and the Fourex Man.

It also attracted a new investor in the form of local businessman Con Athans, who will become the majority shareholder in the company.

Bruce Alvey says he is confident the business can now survive, but realises things have to change.

Alvey Reels thrived after being on the brink of closure. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

There are now plans to make reel out of lighter carbon composite materials rather than fibreglass.

“Carbon materials can be up to 30 per cent lighter and 50 per cent stronger,” he says.

Some production, such as injection moulding, will be moved to a Sunshine Coast contractor but the bulk of the manufacturing will remain at Carole Park, where Alvey has had its factory since the 1970s.

Con Athans, whose background is in marketing, says he did not initially see Alvey as an investment opportunity but was interested in learning how the iconic business got into the position it found itself.

“The way I saw it, the Alvey angler was getting older and the message was not getting out to the younger people,” Athans says.

Athans says there are plans to introduce a new range of reels, a school programme to introduce fishing to children and an improved distribution system.

“Eighty per cent of our sales are from south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales,” he says.

“We want to take the brand national so someone who lives in Western Australia can buy an Alvey Reel as effortlessly as someone in Manly.”

He says it’s great Bruce and Glenn Alvey are staying with the business.

“Bruce has a wonderful relationship with the fishing and angling clubs around Queensland while Glenn has a wealth of knowledge about administration and production,” he says.

Bruce Alvey says the company has plans to move into other related fishing products, although he declined to give details.

“You are not going to live forever if you are going to make reels that last for 50 years,” he says.

The lack of a ‘built in obsolescence’ may have helped build the Alvey legend, but at the same time it meant people were not replacing their reels as often.

The company also was facing competition from cheaper imported reels.

“These days even fridges are designed to only last about seven years,” Alvey says.

“We have a lot of Alvey Reels coming in to be serviced that are between 30 and 40 years old. All they need is a few drops of oil.”

Despite the planned changes to product lines and distribution, Alvey says the traditional reel built for fishing on Queensland’s wide beaches will never change.

“We remain the only reel in the world that can be used for beach fishing,” he says.

“We use brass brushes on spindles in our reels rather than ball bearings. You just can’t keep sand out of ball bearings.

“People know that if you drop an Alvey in the water or sand and you can pick it up it will be fine.”