From share house to warehouse with Drunken Sailor
Drunken Sailor is a Sydney-based brand founded by Justin Arnoux, a passionate food lover with a rich culinary legacy. The team handcrafts premium jams, relishes and mustards, packing them with high-quality ingredients and bold flavours. We spoke to Justin to learn more about the business, why he started it and how their transition to Great Wrap has been.
Great Wrap: Hey Justin! Can you tell us about Drunken Sailor and how it all started?
Justin: Drunken Sailor celebrates the fun in food. I started Drunken Sailor 12 years ago over a few bottles of wine and dinner with some of my favourite people. I wanted to capture the fun and easy going vibes we had that dinner and bottle it.
At the time, preserves on the market were pretty bland and boring so it was my mission to create flavour combinations that would pique people's curiosity, start a conversation and bring a bit of humour to the table. I started the business in my share house kitchen supplying a few local cafes, and fast forward to today we supply both retail and food service jams & relishes to some of the countries best cafes and retailers.
Great Wrap: The best business ideas are born over a bottle of wine in a share house! It’s so great to see you’re stocked in over 200 stores now too. For someone who hasn't tried your products yet, which one is the must-try star product?
Justin: Our Smokey Tomato Relish is our most popular product, it's half way between a tomato relish and a bbq sauce. It goes on just about anything but I created it to pair perfectly on a bacon & egg roll while nursing a hangover. It took me a year to get the perfect flavour balance to compliment the bacon and egg. These days we work closely with our tomato farmers in Echuca, Victoria to get the best tomato for the relish. Honorable mention to our Whisky Piccalilli.
Great Wrap: How good — they sound delicious! You were an early adopter of our Compostable Hand Pallet Wrap in 2023. What made you switch to Great Wrap, and have you made any other changes to your supply chain?
Justin: Switching to Great Wrap was a no brainer, as soon as I heard a local Aussie company was making compostable pallet wrap we made the switch. Small improvements over time has made Great Wrap easy to use and better than most generic plastic pallet wraps on the market, reducing our footprint and reaching our sustainability targets.
We have also improved our packaging to be more sustainable and work with our suppliers to improve the sustainability of the ingredients we use. We have also just purchased a hybrid delivery vehicle.
Great Wrap: Your hybrid delivery van looks epic! Knowing you have distribution and stockists across Australia, how important is it for you to have reliable pallet wrap?
Justin: We ship pallets across Australia on a weekly basis, If our pallet wrap fails then this is not possible. We have to be confident that our pallet wrap will get the stock to the destination without any damage. Our stockists rely on a fast and reliable delivery which is achievable with Great Wrap.
Great Wrap: It’s great to hear you’re achieving your goals with our film. What's next for Drunken Sailor? Are there innovative product launches on the horizon?
Justin: We have a new range coming out soon and we are super excited about it, I can't say much right now but keep an eye on our socials in the coming months to find out what we have been working on
Great Wrap: That’s exciting, we’ll definitely keep a look out.
Visit www.drunkensailor.com.au to learn more, or their Instagram page here.
