Fastrac and Me
30 years of passion for food..
They say it takes a village to raise a child. It’s similar in business, from a village of two in 1991 to a village of our eighty in 2023, Fastrac Foodservice has been raised well and continues in good hands. Our staff have given us a lot of the best of times and just a few of the worst times, thank goodness for the best of times. Without them we would not be where we are today.
Anyway, it’s not about them, it’s about me, after all, I started it!
Now retired, as the Fastrac ‘big daddy’ or what some called ‘the big banana’ of Fastrac, I have been asked to put some Fastrac history on the record.
So, once upon a time, in a far, far away land named Greece, I was born. Now in my seventies, I’m remembered less and less, so apologies if this history may be a mix of fact and fiction…
Born of migrant parents, I arrived in Australia in 1945 at aged one (I don't remember much of that day). Fast forward to the seventies, I had a tendency to not do much, they say if you remember them, you weren't there.
I had many jobs, and mostly bluffing my way through most of them, but I did learn how to do foodservice right, and doing it right the first time around.
Fastrac began in 1991 during a recession, and the first year there was no money, (a Greek with no cash is not a good look and my parents were embarrassed).
Married, a mortgage and two kids, as one famous Greek Zorba, said, 'the whole catastrophe', I thought I could just do it, no worries mate.
Hard work, lots of luck, more hard work, more lots of luck, we continued to grow, why was that?
Because the customers always come first
(not always right but still come first)
We were 1 out of 150 operators in the Melbourne region alone and definitely not the biggest, we had to try and be different. We delivered six days a week, took orders at midnight (and a little after), we chased products that you needed, and we tried to be competitive.
And we are still trying to do it better.
Do we get it right? Did we please everyone?... Hell no, but we kept on learning and trying, and we will continue to learn and try.
In the early 2000's I was lucky enough to have both my sons Nick and James join me and be apart of Fastrac, earning their positions through hard work, whether it was cleaning the warehouse, washing the trucks, did the night shifts and made deliveries.
Some 30 years later they are running Fastrac Foodservice, and I'll admit, they have steered the business forward much more than I could, James pointing us in the right direction and Nick making sure we can afford it and have the systems to get there.
This wouldn't be a family business without looking forward though, to the next generation, while they may still be babies, they love the trucks and love food too.
Con Kostarakis
Founder, Fastrac Foodservices
.png?width=190&height=84&name=fastrac-logo-flat-large-new-CLEARBACKGROUND%20(1).png "fastrac-logo-flat-large-new-CLEARBACKGROUND (1)"){kind=logo}