But not content to sit on his or the company’s laurels, O’Brien Group general manager Peter O’Brien is planning further expansion.
Having invested almost $7 million in new cutting machinery and an expansion of the Mosgiel factory in the last two years, Mr O’Brien has several ideas in the pipeline.
The O’Brien Group has been the largest benchtop manufacturer in Australasia for the last 20 years and is five times bigger than any of its New Zealand competitors.
For a business which his father Barry started in his garage in Kinmont Crescent, Mosgiel in 1972, that is no mean feat.
The company has moved just three times and not very far — from the garage to the old flour mill at the back of the Hotel Taieri in 1978 and then, three years later, to its present 5500sqm site in Gow St.
In 2006 the company was sold to Fletcher Building with Mr O’Brien saying it had grown too large for the family to run.
"We saw it as a way of the business growing to the next level. But it didn’t work out and we bought it back six years later," he said.
"Fletchers had gone through six managers in that time with the company struggling to integrate an entrepreneurial business into its own operating model. When we sold it there were 10 branches owned by my parents. In 2012, that had dropped to just three.
"We made a profit in the first month after taking it over again."
Mr O’Brien was always looking for a point of difference and recently returned from international trade fairs in Cologne and Hanover, the first concentrating on product and the second machinery related.
Already having seen the value of the company’s recent capital injection, he was excited about the next introduction to the industry.
"There is a solid core laminate which is set to compete with the stone market.
"It has the look of stone but will be a more affordable alternative to both stone and ceramic.
"It’s a change driven by higher-value houses being built. About 10% of the cost of a house is spent on the kitchen and bathroom, and clients are after the best look possible. The solid core laminate will provide that," he said.
About 60% of the O’Brien Group’s business was the residential market and the remaining 40% with corporate clients.
The factory produced up to 400 benchtop components each day (the equivalent of 130 completed benchtops).
There were 40 staff employed in the Mosgiel factory and O’Brien Group owns five branches around the country — Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill.
It is also the majority shareholder in branches in Nelson and Alexandra and it is looking to open a distribution centre in Hawke’s Bay.
One potential area of growth was the manufacture of a laminate to produce the same effect as a natural wall, door and cladding veneer which will allow the group to grow its footprint significantly in both the residential and corporate markets, he said.
And there is another plan in the pipeline, which should see the light of day early in 2024. "Hush, hush at the moment though," Mr O’Brien said with a glint in his eye.
A proud Taieri family, the O’Briens have made a significant donation to the new Mosgiel swimming pool which will open next week.
And while he and his brother Phillip, who is the manager of the O’Brien Group, did not supply their brothers, both siblings were also in the benchtop manufacturing business — Rowan in Tauranga and Wayne in Brisbane.
Barry still took a keen interest, and he and his wife Helen could look down on the premises from their Mosgiel home.
