Fruit2Work: making meaningful employment opportunities

Rebecca Archer
Welcome to The Remarkables – Grant Thornton’s podcast that seeks to uncover stories about remarkable people doing incredible things for their community, bettering the world for future generations and inspiring others to do the same. 

Please note that this episode will cover mental health and suicide themes, which can be distressing. If you need support, please go to beyondblue.org or, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 for 24 hour free counselling in Australia.

I’m Rebecca Archer, and today we’re joined by Simon Fenech – General Manager of Fruit2Work. Fruit2Work is a social enterprise that helps criminal offenders transition back into society by providing employment opportunities in packing and supplying fruit and milk to workplaces in Melbourne, Geelong and, most recently, Brisbane. 

Welcome Simon – thank you for joining us on the podcast today!

Simon Fenech
Thanks for having me on board.

Rebecca Archer  
Just before we begin, we love asking our guests what they're reading or listening to or watching at the moment.

Simon Fenech
I love all sorts of crime shows and crime shows and crime podcasts. Given my history, you could probably understand why.

Rebecca Archer 
Any in particular that you would recommend?

Simon Fenech
World's Toughest Prisons, and Netflix have actually just released a couple new episodes, so love it.

Rebecca Archer
All right, well, let's get into the nitty gritty of what we're talking about today now Simon. So, tell us about Fruit2Work and how it all started.

Simon Fenech
Fruit2Work does what it says on the label. It delivers fruit to workplaces, but what it really does, is it creates meaningful employment for people who are impacted by the justice system. 

The concept was started by two young guys who were doing a project for the Foundations for Young Australians. One of them was a consultant, and the other one was a psychologist at Bowen Prison, and the psychologist would work with people for years, and, you know, that he would hear about their hopes and dreams, about where they wanted to go when they were released from prison, only to see him come back to prison a short time later. And every time he asks the question, what are you doing back here? The two common answers were – which is still to this day a very common problem – I couldn't get a roof over my head, and I couldn't get a job.

Now they fall hand in hand. So, if you were sleeping in a gutter, you are not going to get a job, and if you haven't got a job, you are not going to put a roof over your head. So, they came up with this concept that they would sell fruit to their uncles and their aunties and their whole network and employ one person. Well, they did that. They were successful; they exhausted their efforts, and after twelve months, they wanted to go back to their day job. 

So, they sold it to a charity called Whitelion. Whitelion are a charity that works with highly disadvantaged youth. The owner of Fruit2Work now, Rob Brown,he was the CEO of a social enterprise at the time, and twelve months in Whitelion said this model does not work with youth. They wanted to break Fruit2Work up and sell it off. And Rob said, no, I will purchase Fruit2Work off you guys. Rob has got great commercial sense. He's an entrepreneur at heart and he bought Fruit2Work, and I had joined about six months into the Fruit2Work journey, and he returned it from a $200,000 a year business, and this year we'll turn over close to $9m.

Rebecca Archer
That is outstanding. So, Simon, for you personally, what drove you to work in this particular space?

Simon Fenech
Not only did Fruit2Work change my life, but I think it saved my life. I spent time in prison, and I can go into my story if you want to hear a little bit of my story. 

So, I was a very normal human being, or as normal as – family, wife and kids, beautiful house, drove Mercedes Benz, rode a Harley Davidson. I was injured in a workplace accident where I was struck in the back of the forklift, damaging my lower discs. So, I went from being fit as a fiddle; I was an Australian Champion Kickboxer to almost being wheelchair bound. The doctors prescribed me all these different medications, and nothing really worked. 

Cut a long story short, I started using methamphetamines. I threw the doctor's medications in the bin, and I substituted methamphetamines for the doctor's medication. I opened myself into a whole new world; a whole world of people I had never dealt with, a whole world of crime. My habit went from $100 a day to $1,000 a day. I was dealing ice; I was shot, and I was stabbed while using ice. 

My father died, my mother died, my brother died, and my daughter died. I had five suicide attempts, didn't want to be here anymore, and in the end, I ended up in prison. So, I did a twelve-month prison sentence. It was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at the time.

I wasn't offered any sort of rehabilitation. I rehabilitated myself whilst I was in prison. Now there are plenty of drugs in jail, but I chose to do something different, and I did as many programs and courses to better myself whilst I was incarcerated, but when you come home, coming home isn't as easy as people think. I wasn't released a free man. I still had to serve an 18-month corrections order, which meant I had to do a drug and alcohol program, a mental health program, men's behaviour change program. I had to see my caseworker once a week and I had to do 380 hours of community work.

And I had to do that as well as try and get a job. When I was released from prison, I had nowhere to live because I had burnt all my bridges. So the jail had organised a boarding house for me and the boarding house was a drug den. My brother picked me up from the train station to pick his boarding house. I knocked on the door and the lady who answered the door was off her face on heroin. She unlocked these three padlocks on the door and took me to my room. She opened the door and the room stunk of urine. The guy in the room next door urinates on the wall, and it went into my carpet my accommodation was just a mattress and base. No sheets, no blankets, no pillow. And the mattress had a big dirty brown blood patch on it and there was three syringes on the carpet, and this is where I was supposed to start my new life. It was not as easy as I had anticipated, and I begged my brother not to let me stay there. 

He made some boundaries. He helped me plenty, but he made some boundaries from the start that I could not live with him. He's a Justice of the Peace; I was a drug addict. Anyway, he got me into a better boarding house. It was a drug free boarding house, and now I had a roof over my head, which is what I really needed. But then I needed a job, and I needed a job that I was able to juggle in with my parole requirements, my corrections order. That was not easy.

On top of every job I applied for, as soon as they saw a criminal record, I would never hear back. So the boarding house was $200 a week rent; Cenrelink was $520 a fortnight. I was surviving off $60 a week. After the first week I was generally broke and hungry and that's where Fruit2Work came in. I went to see my case worker, corrections one day, and said, hey, I need some help because I'm thinking about going back to doing what I used to do, and I really don't want to go back to jail, and I don't want to end up dead and I want to get my kids back in my life. 

And by fluke, she pulls out a flyer out of the rubbish bin. And it was from free to work and it said, we are seeking a delivery driver and if you've got criminal history, you are encouraged to apply. So, I did; I applied, I got the job. It was starting at 1:30 am. It was two days a week, but it worked around my corrections order and that opportunity was life changing for me. 

Going home, wearing a high-vis uniform made me not feel like a junkie anymore, made me not feel like an ex-offender. I would go into offices like Grant Thornton and deliver fruit and milk and I was received like a normal human being and that is confidence building. That sort of reception made me feel like a normal member of the community.

I was given keys to a van and I was entrusted with a fuel card and a Coles card. I've seen a lot of people who were walking in my shoes, joining the business, struggling, and I was able to help. Within twelve months, I became the Operations Manager. I was the Operations Manager at Fruit2Work for four and a half years, and today I'm one of the Directors and I'm involved in every decision that the business makes. I'm currently in Queensland, setting up Queensland. More importantly, today I have a beautiful fiancé, we’ve built a brand new house, I've got full custody of my youngest son and my youngest son, he calls me his hero and he tells me that I'm the best dad in the world.

Now, I'm not the best dad in the world, but I'm the best dad in the world to him, and it was all because somebody gave me a chance. This business that delivers fruit and milk, this business changes people's lives. It has changed mine and I have watched it change over 130 people so far that we have transitioned back into the community as returning citizens. We've been very successful in the eight years of operation. Nobody that has joined Fruit2Work has gone back to prison in eight years. So, one in two people being released from prison today will go back to jail. Fruit2Work has had not one person go back within eight years.

Rebecca Archer  
My goodness. That's incredible. Simon, I guess you've sort of outlined what the organisation has been established to achieve, but what's at the heart of it? What is this organisation really striving to do for people who are coming back from prison and who've been dealt with in the justice system?

Simon Fenech
It's all about redemption. People can make mistakes. People do make mistakes. When I was in prison, I met four different types of people. I believe there's four different types of people. There are people who just make stupid mistakes. There are people, any wonder they end up in prison because the way that they were brought up, they were destined for jail. And then there are people who are just bad and should stay in prison and they should throw away the key. 

But for the people that make mistakes or people who don't know any better, they deserve another chance at life. Fruit2Work isn't just an employment pathway. What we do here is we have support for people coming out of the system. We help them with their drug and alcohol issues. They have to be 100 per cent drug free. We all do regular drug tests. We run a program called Building a Better You, which is all about building a better you. It's 24 modules dealing with loss, worry, rejection, addiction. We have a financial model, which helps people with their mygov account, set budgets. So, it's not just employment. It's all about changing your life, and we only employ people who are serious about creating change for themselves.

Rebecca Archer  
What would a typical day in the life look like for someone who's employed by Fruit2Work?

Simon Fenech
Very early starts and because Brisbane is new, I've been out on the road myself today, so we start at 3:00 am. It's a sense of community. It's a place where they feel safe. There's no judgment; there is no stigma. People don't have to hide who they are. They don't wear it like a badge of honour, but what they do wear like a badge of honor is what they want to do different.

So often you will hear about the guys’ weekends, you know, reintegrating with their children, reintegrating with their family, speaking to long lost relatives. On long weekends, I get photos of guys and girls at their campsites. They're actually taking their kids away, where previously they've spent their time in prison. So, they come in, they do their day. If they need to speak to the psychologist, we've got a forensic psychologist on board as well to reach out for some extra support. They do that. We put extra training into our guys. The first couple of weeks, guys and girls really struggle because generally they're broke. They'll come to work with no lunch, and they will be too proud to tell you that they are broke.

Rebecca Archer
From a logistical sort of standpoint, where do you source the fruit from, and how do you get it out to the businesses that you're supplying.

Simon Fenech
All our fruit comes from a provider called Simon & George. Simon & George are a national fruit supplier, but the fruit for Victoria will come from the Epping markets. For Queensland, it will come from the Rocklea markets. We try and keep the money for Victoria in Victoria and the same for Queensland. So, we try and keep the money from each state in each state so they can succeed.

Rebecca Archer
In terms of that sort of very early start that you were referring to, what time would people sort of knock off? And once they've finished work, what does their life look like and what sort of are we looking at in terms of how many shifts someone might do each week?

Simon Fenech
How we created Fruit2Work was it works around people's parole requirements. When people come home, it is next to impossible for them to end up in a full-time job and earn a full-time wage because they have got all these hurdles that they still have to jump through. So ideally, when people come home, their parole requirements or corrections orders are quite intensive, and as time goes on, it starts to back off. As those orders back off, we increase their hours. So ideally, they might start on two days a week. They will start at 3:00 am, and that will be finished by about lunchtime.

Ideally, they can go to any appointments they do after lunch, or they might want to put themselves to bed since they’ve have been up since 1:30 in the morning. That's pretty much how it works. So, we'll build them up from two days to five days, and after six or twelve months, when the individual is kicking goals in their own private rental, got their kids back in their lives, and able to hold down a full-time job, we transition them into full time employment elsewhere, and we bring more people through. So, we have transition conversations the whole way through. So, we get to start to think about what their life looks like outside of Fruit2Work. And once their time is up and they're ready to go, we start to back off days to three days, which sort of forces their hand to fly like a butterfly.

Rebecca Archer
You've talked about the positive impacts for you personally from Fruit2Work, but do you have any other stories of employees who've come back and told you about the impact that it's had on their lives?

Simon Fenech
I can tell you dozens of stories, but there's a few that really hit home for me, and one of them is a young lady who we have transitioned within the business who joined us when she was 19. It was her first job she's ever had. She started working in the warehouse and all she ever dreamt about was working in an office. Now, her mother is a drug addict, her father was an alcoholic. Three of her siblings have been to prison. She had not been to prison, but she wanted to do something different, so she joined us at Fruit2Work. She started picking pecking fruit. Today she answers the phones and works in the admin team.

She's been with us for three years now and, you know, he's doing exceptionally well. Another guy who's just has done ten years out of the last twelve within prison. Today he is the Operations Manager for Victoria. His son, who was 17 at the time and was facing jail, also started working with us and now he's in a plumbing apprenticeship and cleared for prison. So, I can tell you dozens of stories of people who have completely changed their life just by having a chance to do something different.

Rebecca Archer  
Just incredible. I know you've said that you've recently launched in Brisbane. Congratulations. That's so exciting. Have you got any further expansion plans? Any ideas of whether or not you'll be moving beyond just the two states, Victoria and Queensland?

Simon Fenech
Like I said, the CEO, Rob, is an entrepreneur at heart. I can see Fruit2Work in every state or territory of Australia. There is a need for what we do. I'm in Brisbane at the moment and I can see how receptive it is from the public. I can see how desperate people are for another chance here. Next year we will be in New South Wales. The business will continue to grow. We will keep creating these employment opportunities for people who want to change their lives.

Rebecca Archer
It seems like it must really have a humbling impact on someone like yourself. To watch all of these people come through, knowing what you've had to go through yourself personally in your journey and see them also realise what you've realised, that you can gain so much confidence and you can reenter society just through having that very positive, receptive response to you as a person.

Simon Fenech
This has been a dream job for me. I wake up in the morning sometimes and, well, I wake up in the morning every day and I actually have to pinch myself to say, is this real? I should have been dead five times over. One of the times I tried to take my life, there was no coming back from that at all. I do not know how I'm still here today, but I'm ever so grateful that I am. I was so messed up. I needed somebody to give me this chance. And to watch people take the chance with both hands and watch them grow…

You know, we had our Christmas party this year. It was at the Werribee zoo. We hired a huge area of the zoo. We had 160 people – men, women and their kids. We had face painters. The kids went on safaris. Some of these kids have not spent Christmas with their mother or father for years. It was incredible. That is the most rewarding feeling I have had in the whole time at Fruit2Work.

Rebecca Archer
From, I guess, the other side of things… organisations who are looking to have a service like Fruit2Work come to their business and sort of supply the fruit and milk and things like that. How do they go about finding you?

Simon Fenech
All you have to do is look up our website fruit2work.com.au. You know, we are a group of people with criminal history, but we service some of the biggest customers in Melbourne, including Grant Thornton. We've got over 1400 customers in Victoria alone. And it's as simple as buying fruit and milk. We're not asking for anything, charitable donations, but the money goes back into the community. It doesn't go to anybody at the top of the business. Getting fat off the profits. The community gets fat off the profits.

Rebecca Archer  
Simon, just to finish off, I wonder if you would be willing to share some of the most remarkable advice that you've ever received.

Simon Fenech
I can give you the best advice and that is to take one day at a time and never give up. You would be surprised when you think that there's no light at the end of the tunnel, it appears, and your days can change from one day to the next. You know, just. Just never give up. I. Like I said earlier, I should have been. I should have been dead five times over. Had I have succeeded, it would have been a huge mistake.

Today my life has turned around a total 180, you know, and I'm contributing member of society and I'm able to give back to the community to just never give up.

Rebecca Archer
Amazing advice and such an incredible story, Simon. I wonder if anyone listening today wants to find out more. Maybe get involved from a partnership perspective, or maybe they know someone who could benefit from being an employee of Fruit2Work. How should they find you? How can they follow your journey?

Simon Fenech
If you want to follow my journey, there's a book called Breaking Good, which is my full autobiography. I will tell you my story in detail.

Rebecca Archer
If you liked this podcast and would like to hear more remarkable stories, you can find, like and subscribe to The Remarkables podcast by Grant Thornton Australia on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a review or ideas on who you’d like to hear from next. I’m Rebecca Archer – thank you for listening.