It was January 1996.
Bill Clinton had just been sworn in as the US President. The Spice Girls were number one on the charts. We watched movies rented from Blockbuster, and Amazon only sold books. The first Mission: Impossible film hadn’t been released yet, and if you wanted cutting-edge tech, you bought a Nokia flip phone.
My eldest daughter, Harmony, was 11. My twins, Bhima and Sage, were both 9. I was almost 37 and out of work, having spent the previous decade launching and managing Queensland’s biggest health food store, Organic Oasis (now Kunara).
That’s where the story of Unique really begins — not with a business plan, but with a love for the health food industry, bucketloads of enthusiasm, and a little serendipity.
One product and a whole lot of possibility
A mate in a Sydney health food store had mentioned a liquid guarana shot that was flying off the counter. In the mid-90s, all-night dance parties were everywhere, and guarana had developed a reputation as a natural stimulant that kept you energised.
It wasn’t available in Queensland yet. Opportunity spotted.
I rang the producer of the product, Benjamin Duncan, and he agreed to sell me the first order.
Small problem: I had no money to pay for it.
Enter my friend Michael Maltby, a truly generous soul, who lent me $2,000. ANZ somehow agreed to finance an old Mitsubishi van. I bought a carbon-copy invoice book, and Sensational Food Distributors was born.
I drove from Cairns to the Gold Coast, selling boxes of Rage 2000 Guarana Shots to every health food store I could find in the phone book (there was no Google yet). Stores paid by cash or cheque, and every dollar went straight back into the business. Just like that, we were away.
The table tennis shed became storage. The “business phone number” was our home landline, and the kids often answered calls from retailers. It usually went something like:
“Hello… oh okay… I’ll go get Dad. D-A-A-A-A-D, PHONE!”
Our customer service has definitely come a long way since then.
After a few months, I renamed the business The Guarana Man, because that’s all I sold. Michael was paid back within 12 months, and the range expanded. Before long, I was distributing capsules, creams, cordials, and any other innovative products I uncovered on my travels.
Somehow, suppliers were willing to take a chance on an enthusiastic Queenslander.
From Guarana Man to Unique
By then, I was flat out — driving, selling, delivering, invoicing — and needed help. I employed an old friend, Annie Howard, to answer phones and pack orders. We added a fax machine to the home phone line, complete with the unforgettable fax tone and the “press OK to receive” ritual (those of you under 30 won’t know what I’m talking about).
Annie’s daughter Susie and her husband Russell later joined the team, and after three years of 90+ hour weeks, seven days a week, I finally took a holiday.
By the late nineties, guarana was only a small part of the over 150 products we sold. Retailers would ask what we specialised in, and I kept replying, “We specialise in unique health products.”
There it was. In 1999, Unique Health Products was born.
Sales runs all over Queensland and Northern NSW, meant lugging heavy photo albums of product images into stores, utilising samples to sell new lines, writing codes by hand, and faxing order forms back to the shed. I’d also make the daily drive to scavenge boxes from Captain Snooze and Pillow Talk’s cardboard bins, then spend the night packing orders and loading the Mitsi for next-day deliveries, usually all the way to Lismore and back.
As Unique grew, the hours got longer. I was sometimes getting home from Byron at midnight, having a few scary moments nodding off at the wheel. My back was giving out from lifting 30kg boxes in and out of a jam-packed van, and my knees would lock up from spending so much time in the dinky car seat.
One day, in the middle of Brisbane, the side sliding door of the Mitsi just fell off. It was a sign. That’s when I brought in couriers and hired sales reps for Byron and Brisbane.
Same formula. Photo album. Samples. Handwritten orders. Fax.
Then one day, a retailer flicking through the album said: “Can you leave this photo album behind one day? I always forget what I buy from you.”
That comment changed everything.
Innovation, growth & the road ahead
In 2007, Unique launched what was, to our knowledge, the world’s first natural products distributor catalogue with full colour product photos. That single move cemented our reputation as innovators, trusted advisors, and the company retailers called first.
Our competitors were frequently asked, “When are you going to have a catalogue like Unique’s?” They never did.
Fifteen years later, reading the tea leaves again, we saw the shift to online shopping and committed to building the industry’s best webshop — including creating the “My Products” feature that makes reordering faster and easier. The final printed Unique Catalogue was produced in July 2022.
Today, the “What’s On Deal,” and “What’s New” webpages dominate traffic — and our annual Cyber Sale still causes a level of pandemonium we’re oddly proud of.
Fast forward to 2026, and Unique is known for:
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The best customer service in the industry
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The nicest sales reps in the industry
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The easiest webshop to place orders
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A phenomenal 97% in-stock rate across 3,800+ SKUs
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Deliveries with virtually no mistakes or damage
Unique is the largest importer of natural products from the USA and exclusive Australian partner to brands like CLIF, Bragg, Gimme, Giovanni, and ACURE. We also import exclusive brands from the UK, Germany, India, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Canada and New Zealand.
After 30 years in business, we’re Australia’s most trusted independent wholesale distributor in the health food channel, and we remain proudly family-owned.
But none of this happened because of systems, vans, catalogues or technology.
It happened because of people.
Built by people, powered by purpose
Over the past 30 years, many wonderful souls have worked beside me — team members past and present, suppliers who trusted us with their brands, and retailers who backed us long before we were “established.”
To our suppliers: thank you for believing in us, walking alongside us and growing with us.
To our retail partners: thank you for choosing Unique, trusting us, sharpening us and allowing us to be part of your journey.
And to our team: thank you for your care, commitment, long hours, and dedication to continuous improvement.
I also want to acknowledge my kids, who grew up inside this business, worked in it, survived it, and then built successful health product businesses of their own. I’m grateful for the part they’ve played over the years, and for the support they’ve given me to keep building Unique.
From a borrowed $2,000 and a single product in 1996, to the business Unique is today, none of this would have been possible without you.
Thanks to the support of our suppliers, the trust of our retailers and the dedication of our team, Unique Health Products is proud to be on track to surpass $100 million in sales this year — a milestone that belongs to all of us. And in mid-2026, we will be relocating Unique to her brand-new, 6,000 sqm purpose-built distribution facility, located in Aura, just 40 minutes north of Brisbane. Click here to view the next chapter.
We’re also rolling out an Australian first for our industry - goods-to-person automation – which will boost efficiency dramatically and make doing business even easier. And don’t worry, this isn’t the start of a robot uprising. They’re just faster at the boring bits.
The real magic — the heart, the care, the culture — that’s all human, and it always will be. From the bottom of my extremely grateful heart, thank you for the vital part you have played.
You are forever Unique.
