IT is a tough climate for manufacturing and agriculture in Australia these days, yet a small Mount Pleasant family business straddling both sectors is somehow defying the doom and gloom.
In the game for more than 30 years, farm equipment manufacturer Magnus Australia has been owned by the McLatchie family since 1992.
Managing director Craig McLatchie, who bought it outright from his father Ivor in 2000, said the secret to the company's longevity was simple.
"If you don't diversify, you don't survive," he said.
The original owners, the McAuliffes, started out making paddock gates, but the scope of the business has expanded since then, typically employing between 25 and 30 in the Adelaide Hills region.
In terms of farm equipment, the business produces feeders, drinkers, heaters, bins, nests, handlers, ramps and crushes among others.
In the 1990s the McLatchies moved beyond farm equipment into building industry products such as concrete saws and diamond tools, but increased competition from South Korea and China forced the business to reinvent themselves once more.
"It was costing us more to make than for them to sell," Mr McLatchie said.
And so his father moved away from building industry products and began producing sheds, which are more difficult for overseas producers to compete on.
When Mr McLatchie took over, he continued this direction, and today this side of the business comprises more than 50 per cent of the profit.
By making-to-order storage and shearing structures customised to the client's needs, Magnus Australia has a product line relatively unthreatened by mass-produced overseas competition.
The company also makes sure to provide extras such as on-site visits from sales manager Brendan Loechel.
"Without doubt a lot of the reason we get jobs is we've got people that go on-site and offer person-to-person contact, they're not just buying out of a newspaper - Brendan gets out there and explains the pros and cons," Mr McLatchie said.
Mr Loechel - a second generation sales manager for the company, following in the footsteps of his father John - agreed that the on-site visits were important for certain products.
"For standard sheds it isn't really needed, but for shearing sheds and sheepyards it usually is, and we try to customise with other products as well, with custom-made panels and gates to suit each yard," he said.
