Ausfine is bringing its nine-figure meat and dairy business from the land down under to the Mile High City’s tallest building.
“We’re a company with 38 years history, but this is a startup here. This is a new frontier,” said Ausfine executive Garry Embleton.
The company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, helps meat and dairy producers export and import between 100 and 150 million pounds of goods a year and rakes in revenue “a bit south” of $500 million, according to Embleton.
Last month, Ausfine moved its fledgling U.S. division into 6,400 square feet in Republic Plaza.
“They threw a good deal at us,” Embleton said of Brookfield Properties, the building’s owner.
Embleton, who is based in Australia, has been in Denver for the past few weeks to get operations off the ground with the three locally-based employees. Furniture was delivered last week, replacing the camping chairs and folding tables. TVs for the mountain-facing conference room arrived in the middle of BusinessDen’s interview.
“We’ve taken too much space for what we need today, but we’ve got some pretty ambitious plans on how we’re going to grow this,” Embleton said. “This space will mean we can expand with it, and the deal we’ve done with the building owner takes that into account. So yes, it will cost us more each year of the lease, but we should have more bums in seats as that happens.”
The 75-person company has done this once before. A decade ago, it opened its first international office in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Now, 23 staffers work there.
Ausfine has had its eyes on the states since at least 2010, when Embleton joined. The U.S. used to be a net importer of dairy products a couple decades ago, but Ausfine executives anticipated that trend would reverse and began quietly building relationships across the pond.
“As the US suppliers started to build some export surplus, they didn’t know who the international customers were. They weren’t familiar with shipping documentation and country requirements around all of those things. So that was an opportunity for us to add some value,” Embleton said.
After considering Texas and California, the company formally launched its American division last summer in Denver. The company initially worked out of the WeWork in downtown’s Tabor Center.
Denver’s airport and cattle-ranching roots helped it win out.
“One of the reasons we’re here in Denver, we’ve got a great partnership with Leprino,” Embleton added, referring to the Denver-based cheese maker.
The search for an office began in Cherry Creek and along Colorado Boulevard, said Ausfine’s broker, Pete Staab of Newmark.
“Cherry Creek is super tight, so there weren’t many options to choose from in their size range and the economics were also a factor –it’s pretty expensive,” said Staab.
“Then we started having discussions about downtown, and I started setting up tours.”
Republic Plaza won out for its status as Denver’s tallest building, and Brookfield’s flexibility on Ausfine’s lease, Embleton said.
“We did have some consideration of maybe going out toward Fort Collins or something like that,” he added. “But for us, it’s having a central area. It’s a marquee building. It makes a statement for us.”
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