Breaking onto the scene in 1993, Scully RSV was a breath of fresh air for Australia’s cold chain logistics industry.
There was a large market waiting to be tapped into and provided for, as consumers across the country needed a means to store various products in a temperature-controlled environment.
Scully RSV saw this, acted, and the rest is history.
Back then, Scully RSV was a modest business which looked to service clients however they could and took pride in their tight-knit community of staff members.
Today, CEO Andrew McKenzie and the company still think this way.
“We’re not a large corporation,” he says. “We’re a nimble, agile, small Australian-run business that loves what we do.”
But the current numbers paint a different picture. While their modesty may still be intact, Scully RSV has seen incredible success in the industry since its inception, quickly becoming one of Australia’s leading manufacturers and servicers for refrigerated transport.
In 2024, this success has culminated in the major expansion of the company’s operations across the country.
Scully RSV is strengthening its presence through the upgrades of existing sites but has also opened a brand-new facility in South Australia.
Having opened in early October, the new site — located in Wingfield, Adelaide and helmed by Asmara Thompson— is a mighty testament to the company’s growth in terms of size and capacity.
The facility is approximately 8,000m² big, built to accommodate Scully RSV’s massive scale of operations which has grown to service increasing customer demand.
Hosting a truck, van and trailer fleet which will consist of anywhere between 30 and 40 vehicles at any given time and feature particular multi-temp and roadtrain truck models, the site was specifically designed as more of an operational hub when compared to other Scully RSV sites around the country, as, according to Andrew, the concentration of South Australia’s population in Adelaide demanded that the Wingfield site be fully stocked up with equipment and fleet power.
Additionally, the site’s location is imperative to Scully RSV’s revenue, as it consolidates the company’s business efforts which are spread out across Australia.
“The Adelaide market is incredibly interesting,” he says.
“It significantly punches above its weight from a transport and freight task perspective. It acts as a key corridor for business running from the east to the west, and from the north to the south. It’s really important for Scully RSV to integrate into this area.”
Despite its essence to Scully RSV’s continued success, the opening of the Wingfield site was quite straightforward for the company, which has constantly refined its expansion and rollout plans in its three decades of practice.
According to Andrew, Scully RSV runs like a well-oiled machine.
“We have a great understanding of our market, what our consumers and opportunities look like, and how that flows,” he says.
“The opening of this site is the evolution of that understanding. We have a good roadmap for how we execute our plans to open a site: from looking at land, negotiations, all the way to finalising the purchase itself.”
Scully RSV’s brand is now stretched all around Australia, but this has not stopped Andrew from ensuring continuity in the customer experience at any given outlet.
The company’s Wingfield site guarantees the same experience as any other Scully RSV facility. Andrew credits Scully RSV’s extreme growth to its sense of community and values-driven ethos.
The company’s unwavering commitment to both the needs of individual consumers and the needs of company employees at every site is essential to its brand and is reflected in their immense success.
Every expansion opportunity that Scully RSV undertakes is approached on the condition that the company can maintain these core values across all of its sites.
“It is critical for Scully RSV that the experience we provide to everyone, customers and employees, is the same at any of our locations,” he says.
“We always strive to capture the heart and minds of the people that have been with us for a while, and the people that are joining us, especially now as a relatively sizable organisation. We believe it is achievable to promote the same values at every outlet. Every site is a Scully site.”
On top of working as a powerhouse for Scully RSV’s country-wide operations, the Wingfield site will continue to uphold the company’s community-oriented values, which manifest in a wide range of engagement efforts across the many areas that Scully manufacturing and servicing sites operate in.
The company supports many grassroots organisations and social groups which bring locals together in positive ways, from local sporting clubs to schools, and even develops career pathway programs for children interested in the industry.
“When you can afford to give back, you do,” Andrew says.
“We really are about entrenching ourselves into the areas and communities we operate in. We’re a proud Australian business, and we’d like to think we’re punching above our weight in a lot of respects, and we certainly do that by being user-friendly.”
The opening of the Wingfield site remains a major milestone for Scully RSV, a company expertly balancing its big ambitions with its small-company values.