Introducing Ezi Lawns
Ezi Lawns is a turf supplier based in Bordertown, South Australia, that specialises in supplying premium quality turf to homeowners, landscapers, and commercial developers. The company offers a wide variety of turf options to suit different applications, including Sir Walter DNA Certified Buffalo and TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda.
The business is relatively new and came about from an opportunity for growth as a Lawn Solutions Australia (LSA) member in South Australia. The team behind Ezi Lawns includes Owners Ashley Cook and Jenny Tilbrook, alongside Matthew and Kriena Rowett.
Ashley Cook was an oat miller who also worked in the family oat milling business, Blue Lake Milling, and did so for many years. Ashley moved from Mount Gambier to Bordertown when he left school. During Ashley’s time at Blue Lake Milling, Ashley learnt everything about making the best product for porridge possible and gained a strong knowledge of the production process. He was responsible for ensuring the production, packaging lines and infrastructure in the mill and facilities kept pace with the business as it grew both domestic and export markets. At the time the business was sold in 2015, it employed approximately 140 staff across 3 sites located in 3 states.
Ashley is passionate about producing quality products for a large market and doing this in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. While not considered the conventional fit as a turf farmer, Ashley’s experience has proven to be instrumental in adapting and finding success within the new business. The team at Ezi Lawns jokes that Ashley’s favourite things in life are concrete and steel with all the construction projects he’s undertaken over the years, but a love for turf is quickly becoming a new favourite.
Jenny is a farmer’s daughter from a small town called Lake King in Western Australia. She completed a Bachelor of Accounting and Finance and worked in financial planning before joining Ashley at Blue Lake Milling. Jenny worked in the sales team where the markets included industrial, domestic, and export retail customers.
The time at Blue Lake Milling provided Ashley and Jenny with experience in building and maintaining long-term supply arrangements for a broad range of customers including the major supermarkets and multi-national food companies. As the company grew so did the systems which ensured compliance with food standards across multiple countries and markets. This included production quality controls to ensure products that would meet individual customer expectations while ensuring the operations were as cost-effective and efficient as possible.
Matthew Rowett is an accountant and financial planner and is the numbers man at Ezi Lawns. As a director of Ezi Lawns, Matt’s input on management systems and financial decisions is paramount with his many years of experience as an advisor for another turf business, Sunnyside Instant Lawn.
Kriena Rowett is the one who keeps everyone grounded and reminds the team of the importance of family. As a small family business, Kriena is crucial and is often the one who has all the kids when work commitments ramp up. Kriena always has a plan and healthy food on hand to help us work towards what we are trying to achieve. “We all need a mum in our lives to keep us on track and Kriena is that for all of us!” Jenny informed us.
Being in a business that grows something is exciting and tangible. There is the element of uncertainty of working with an agricultural product, but there is also the sense of achievement when you can consistently produce a product to the highest standard. The team at Ezi Lawns don’t shy away from hard work and all enjoy the opportunity to have a balance between the physical outdoors work on the product, but also working in and on the business.
There is still a demand for kikuyu in the region, but Ezi Lawns would like to encourage the market to move away from the kikuyu and adopt more environmentally sustainable varieties like TifTuf. Environmental sustainability is a passion for the business with improved production efficiencies and the development of new high-quality turf products for the market.
A new business is exciting and a little daunting at the same time. The benefit for Ezi Lawns is the opportunity to learn from other well-established businesses, taking things that work well and using their own experiences to implement new ways of doing things, the Ezi Lawns way.
