Steel Blue boots sales soaring on WA mining, construction boom.

Image: Steel Blue CEO, Garry Johnson with Krystle Fernandes-Hayes, Marketing Manager – Australasia and a selection of work boots at Steel Blue’s Malaga, WA manufacturing facility. Credit: Nic Ellis/The West Australian Business Retail Manufacturing WA.

Miners’ feet on the ground give Steel Blue a welcome kick.

More boots on the ground needed to fuel WA’s firing resources sector has proved a boon for Australia’s top supplier of work boots.

Malaga-based Steel Blue boots has enjoyed a strong lift in demand for its products — with record sales in 11 of the past 12 months — as workers leave the office for field roles on mines or building sites.

And appetite remains “robust” even with ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns in the Eastern States, which brought construction activity in Sydney to a standstill last month. About 20% of Steel Blue’s business comes from WA. A sizeable chunk comes from the east coast, while the remainder is from New Zealand, Europe and the US.

Chief executive Garry Johnson said the strength of the mining sector, a booming housing market and a growing pipeline of civil engineering projects had lit a fire under sales. “It’s been fuelled by… base metals but also precious metals, and then obviously civil engineering projects with rail, tunnels, roads, bridges, and residential construction. It’s just amazing,” he said.

“There’s more people working in the field, a lot more people changing jobs — so that’s new boots as well. It’s slowed down a little bit this last month with what’s happening in NSW in particular, but also Victoria and Queensland… (lockdowns) slow demand for our product, but it’s still quite robust.”

Steel Blue’s revenue has grown at a rate of 20% over the last 12 months and the company is approaching turnover of $100 million a year.

State and Federal government building grants to pull the economy out of the depths of COVID-19 sparked a home building frenzy, while billions of dollars in infrastructure spending has been lined up for the post-pandemic recovery.

Deloitte Access Economics this month estimated WA had $26 billion worth of engineering construction projects under way and another $110b of infrastructure projects in the pipeline — more than any other State or Territory.

Mr. Johnson said he was acutely aware his sector had been targeted by government stimulus but couldn’t help but feel “a little bit guilty”. The company is trying to pay it forward by investing more in local manufacturing, focussing on sustainability and partnering with organisations such as Breast Cancer Care WA and Beyond Blue.

Steel Blue makes the bulk of its footwear at a manufacturing hub in Jakarta, Indonesia, but recently invested $2m to upgrade its manufacturing capabilities at Malaga. It uses the facility in Perth’s north to make boots for defence contracts and local businesses.

Mr. Johnson said it was already proving to be an “added bonus” by relieving COVID-related supply chain issues. “Without a doubt, (shipping) has been challenging,” he said. “Sometimes we have to pay four to five times what we normally pay and you still can’t be guaranteed of service.”

The privately owned company employs just under 80 people across Australia, including about 60 in WA. It was founded in 1995 by Ross Fitzgerald and four other working directors.

Mr. Johnson said Steel Blue also wanted to be at the forefront of sustainability and was tracking to have Climate Active certification to be Scope 3 carbon neutral by October.

Scope 3 covers indirect emissions upstream or downstream in a company’s value chain. “We would be the first footwear business in Australia and one of only a handful of safety boot manufacturers globally that would have that certification,” Mr. Johnson said.

Climate Active is a government-backed program that awards certification to businesses and organisations that have credibly reached a state of net zero emissions.

Source: 13/08/2021 | The West Australian | Danielle Le Messurier.
Steel Blue boots sales soaring on WA mining, construction boom.
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