Each quarter we interview one of our clients to get an insight into their business. This issue we spoke to Philip and Claire from AgBiTech.

When did your business commence?

AgBiTech commenced operations in 2002.

What does your business do? What makes your business successful?

We manufacture types of naturally occurring viruses that biologically control some the world’s biggest pest caterpillars. The success we’ve come to enjoy comes from being able to efficiently mass rear millions of caterpillars who make the virus for us.

What has been your biggest achievement to date?

Our expansion into Brazil and the US where we now have production facilities and laboratories. In the last 12 months we have also commenced work in several African countries as well as in two Asian locations. From our humble beginnings of a couple of people in a shed on a farm west of Warra to now having a global team of nearly 100 people reminds us daily that it can take many years of hard work to be an overnight success!

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone starting up a business or looking to expand into overseas markets?

Get local, on ground help you trust, look twice, jump once, and if you stumble, fail fast, learn quickly and move on.

How do you relax from the pressures of being in business?

With AgBiTech effectively operating in several time zones globally, ‘office hours’ can be 24 hours/day. Balancing up being available to help the wider team as well as operate in Australian business hours requires our local people to have some discipline to be ‘unavailable’, even though technology makes it so easy not to be so. Family, friends and of course walks around our beautiful city without a device in the pocket help.