Business features

In post-war 1950, entrepreneurial Joe Calleja and his wife left their home in Malta in search of new opportunities in Australia. Based in Melbourne, the former policeman bought one truck and worked long days as a subcontractor carting scrap metal for industrial clients in Victoria.

“He bought one truck and then bought more,” said the Calleja Group’s Project Manager, Peter Dudley. “As his sons got older, they also drove the trucks. We now have around 130 trucks – so it’s grown considerably from Joe Calleja’s original dream.”

Calleja Transport officially formed in 1971, operating from the family home in Ascot Vale. The operation moved to larger premises in Brooklyn in 1975, then to the present head office site in Altona North.

Today run by three generations of Calleja’s, the company’s core business continues to be the collection of industrial waste for recycling and disposal, and still only within Victoria. Complementary to the waste transport business, the company purchased a number of purpose-built earthmoving equipment, graders, excavators and bulldozers to enhance the land-filling and waste recycling operations.

“Our clients today include Smorgon Steel, Simsmetal and Northstar Steel Recyclers,” Mr Dudley explained. “They are the big players in recycling scrap metal. We are the ones who carry their waste.”

From very humble beginnings as a one-truck business, Calleja Transport evolved into the Calleja Group. The company continues to expand in size, services and abilities with the help of Joe Calleja’s three sons, David, Donald and Brian. Today, Donald, Brian and David’s son Rodney hold key management roles.

It was David Calleja as Managing Director who identified and pursued new opportunities with the acquisition the Bacchus Marsh-based Maddingly Brown Coal Mine in 1990.

Soon after joining his father’s business in 1963, David showed a flair for driving new business and new innovations. He was in instrumental in the development of improvements made to waste-handling equipment such as hook-lift trucks and bin systems.

 “When David Calleja bought the mine, he had considered it for uses other than mining,” Mr Dudley said, explaining that the original aim was to use the mine’s 13.5 million cubic metre hole as an EPA-licensed landfill site.

The open cut mine began supplying steaming coal to paper mills, several hospitals and other industrial customers in 1946. Coal sales ceased due the availability of cheap, natural gas and the closure of the CSR hardboard mill in 1998 (which the Calleja Group bought in 1999). The company then re-directed mining activities towards alternate coal uses, such as supplying agricultural customers with organic fertilisers, soil conditioners and top soils.

The company soon realised that the brown coal reserve was a valuable resource to Victoria, and explored drying technologies to make a product that would be acceptable as an alternative to black coal.

The lowest ranking of coal, brown coal is not mined and burnt in many places in Australia due to the 60% moisture content which has a greater capacity for creating greenhouse gases. For the last 14 years, the Calleja Group has funded pioneering research into a drying process which turns brown coal into the product equivalent to high-quality black coal.

“In 1994 we acquired the technology from two professors at University of Melbourne,” Mr Dudley said. “We built a small commercial plant in Bacchus Marsh, and then sought an equity partner as it will take millions and millions to put the technology into commercial practice.”

With Environmental Solutions International Ltd (ESI) as the technology licensee and Bacchus Marsh plant manager, the Calleja Group envisions that the company’s proprietary clean coal drying process will prove to be a viable commercial process from mid-2007.

The small commercial coal drying plant sits on the 1,100-acres of land on the former CSR hardboard mill site which the Calleja Group today call the JBD Industrial Park, using the initials of various Calleja family members. This industrial land is deemed ideal for new investment and business expansion.

“We were approached by a number of companies in compatible industries,” Mr Dudley said. “We currently have four tenants on the site as well as ourselves.” The tenants include a timber converting business, an oil manufacturer, a sand producer, and a fertiliser and soil manufacturer.

“We run it as a farm as well as an industrial site. We have 400 wagyu beef. We grow crops to feed the cattle – we have a couple of farmers on the site. We also fatten sheep for people in the area.”

Peter Dudley joined the Calleja Group eight years ago after a few decades working with the Smorgon Group. Brought on-board to help the family-run business create greater operational efficiencies, Mr Dudley sees the business eventually relocating from the Altona North base to the Bacchus Marsh industrial park site.

“The dream of the family was to eventually transfer Calleja Transport to Bacchus Marsh as well,” he said. “It is still on the cards.”