HARRY Valentine Perry was just six months old when his parents bought their first bakery.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
By the time he could walk he was helping to decorate gingerbread houses.
He vividly remembers his siblings Joe and Matilda Perry crawling around the Albury sourdough bakehouse floor on flour bags.
“We had steps to stand up on behind the counter,” Harry recalls.
“Eventually we grew enough to see the customers over the top.”
When Kay and Ross Valentine Perry decided to sell their iconic Valentine’s Bakehouse, which was originally known as John and Helga’s Bakehouse, after almost 30 years of business last spring, Harry was not ready to see it go out of the family.
It didn’t take long to get Joe and Matilda on board too.
“It was never the plan; we never thought we’d take over the bakery,” Harry explains.
“We went in so many different directions and we were all enjoying what we were doing.
“But the bakery was always so much a part of our lives.”
As a schoolgirl Matilda remembers getting a bakery-fresh packed lunch in her bag every weekday morning.
“Growing up in the family business it was hard to resist the chance to take it on,” she says.
“The business was instilled into us.”
The siblings bought out Valentine’s Bakehouse, which includes the Rutherglen bakery, Wodonga Plaza and Volt Lane, Albury, shops (the latter on the move to Myer Centrepoint soon), and The Barista, Baker & Brewer.
Their new Wodonga Plaza shopfront marks the first roll-out of the revamped brand Valentines Artisan Sourdough Bakers. They are growing their coffee and bread wholesale market and widening their product range to include light lunches.
With Harry and Joe’s business degrees and Matilda’s economics degree, the siblings say their skills complement one another.
All living within a block of each other at Rutherglen, they say communication and clear roles are key to working well together.
“We talk things through over a glass of wine,” Harry says.
“We all have our own separate roles and we don’t step on each other’s toes.”
Having only learnt the trade when he first bought the bakery behind present-day Bistro Selle, Ross maintained an epic sourdough tradition stretching back 50 years in Albury.
Now working full-time on the family’s Rutherglen winery Olive Hills Estate, Ross still keeps tabs on town.
“Dad still checks in to see the standards are as high as he set them,” Joe quips.
Harry says their parents will always be their best sounding board.
“Mum’s been doing the books for 30 years,” he says.
“We’ll always keep them on as mentors; you can’t really turn away that level of experience.”
For Joe, the future looks sweet.
“For something that supplied us with so much, it’s nice to be able to continue it on,” he says.