Iconic family-owned Hobart business to sell after 60 years
An iconic family-owned Hobart store could close after 60 years of trading, with the business and building for sale.
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THE end of an era is soon to arrive for an iconic family-owned Hobart Asian grocery store.
After 60 years of trading in Hobart, the Wing & Co business is for sale while the Sandy Bay building it has called home for 40 years is to be sold.
The store is a retail supermarket and wholesale supplier of Asian food with kitchenware and Asian gift items.
Joseph Foong, who was born in China in 1919, arrived in Australia and established Wing & Co in the mid-1950s at a central Hobart location.
He built a house and married Laraine Henry in 1957. They had six children.
The business has remained in the family ever since, and their daughter and current managing
director Maria Wickham said she had mixed feelings about the imminent closure.
Mrs Wickham has run the business for the past eight years, continuing the family tradition long after her parents died.
“It makes me very sad because there’s a possibility that my dad’s legacy won’t continue,’’ she said.
“A lot of people think Wing & Co is an institution and we pride ourselves on servicing our customers.
“We’re all getting on towards retirement age. Unfortunately, there aren’t any of the next generation to step up and so there seems to be little point in continuing on.
“If somebody would want to purchase the business, I’d be rapt because then it would keep going. If we disappeared, there would be a real hole in the market.
“And we do service a lot of restaurants and I feel really bad about that because we’ve tried really hard to look after them.”
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Mrs Wickham said the business would likely close in April, depending on what took place in the sale process.
Wing & Co’s building in Russell Cres, Sandy Bay is set to be sold by an on-site auction with vacant possession on March 12.
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