Our History
For more than 30 years B&W Rural has been closely working with agricultural communities across New South Wales and Queensland.
Explore our history and where we are headed.
Founding team members of B&W Rural, Ross Beesley, Chris Maunder, Tony Bailey, Peter Birch, Anna Madden. Picture taken 1993.
B&W Rural began on 2 April 1990, when an opportunity arose for Peter Birch and Peter Weal, who'd worked together for five years, to go into business together.
B&W Rural's first branch in Moree
A seed is planted
This opportunity was thrust on them by the demise of Northern Rural Services, which at the time was owned by the highflying entrepreneur Tony Paola.
Tony had brought the first photocopy machines and fax machines to Australia and had a corporate office equipment business.
Unfortunately, this went into receivership, also affecting Northern Rural Services where the two Peters were branch managers.
The demise meant Northern Rural Services clients were without an ag business to service their needs.
It was then that the two men, together with Stuart Dolbel formed what as known around the district as Burr, Weed and Dog Biscuit.
A branch was established in Moree and B&W Rural was born.
Building on a strong foundation
By 1995 B&W Rural was a very successful business, covering clients from Inverell to Goodooga and Gunnedah to Moonie and everywhere between.
Securing good terms from suppliers was difficult however, which meant at times things were tight. An introduction to Jack Stevens from Elders was the beginning of a successful joint venture with Elders, that continues today.
The B&W Rural logo, circa 2018.
In 1996 the Mungindi branch was opened with Mick and Belinda Brosnan at the helm. It has continued to be a very successful business.
Since then we have added branches at North Star, Collarenebri, Goondiwindi, Narrabri, Dirranbandi and Walgett.
Our future
Today B&W Rural has eight branches across northern New South Wales and southern Queensland.
We proudly employee 55 staff in the team and Peter Birch is still very much a part of the day-to-day running of the company.
We enjoy working clients, from the largest wheat and cotton producers, right down to the smallest mixed farmers. We are actively involved of the communities in which we work, as we recognise these communities are the backbone of country Australia, and we want them to be thriving and strong and great places to live and work.
Peter attributes much of the companies enduring success to respect:
“The respect that I have for the staff and that they have for me and each other is one of the things makes B&W Rural so successful. We have great respect for our suppliers and their respect for us is evident in how we do business."
The agricultural industry has changed enormously since our inception and we will continue to support producers as things such as Ag Tech becomes the norm.
Our respect for the environment means that we will be living and farming here for many generations to come.