Bloop, bloop, bloop - another one bites the dust.

Don Smallgoods was founded in 1940-something by the very successful butcher / abattoir owner, RJ Gilberston (some of our older readers may remember his chain of butcher outlets). Named after his beloved football team and suburb (Essendon), he changed the menus of ‘ordinary working families’ (c) K. Rudd.

Who hasn’t been to a party where Don kabana, stras, salami or frankfurts were served? Amongst Australian readers, I assume none. Before old RJ founded the smallgoods manufacturer, processed cured meat was, just like soccer, garlic and spaghetti, for ‘wogs’, but he put thinly sliced strasbourg on the everyman's plate (next to the Coon cheese squares and those sickeningly sweet green cocktail onions).

Cut forward 60 years later to today, where the current owners of the brand, George Weston Foods Limited, have announced that 620 people (many of which do not speak English) have lost their jobs. Of course, marketing and HR departments get to keep their jobs, but the manufacture of the smallgoods looks like it’ll head off-shore.

They have promised to offer the sacked workers, “transition program employment assistance” – I speak English fluently and I don’t have any idea what that means, so god help their migrant workforce.

“They were incredibly sad and disappointed that this is the decision that's been made and we took them through the reasons for the decision," he (Don Sutton CEO) said. Mr Sutton said Don Smallgoods had suffered about $80 million in losses over the past nine years ...

If that’s the magnitude of the financial loss then yeah, that’s what has to be done, and I feel genuine pity for the workers. But the reason why I’m posting on this dry corporate matter is because I know a bit about this joint.

Here’s my version of events. RJ Gilbertson founded a top quality company and it was highly profitable. His descendants largely hate each other’s guts and the company got bundled up in the 80’s and sold off in bits because greed was good back then and none of the family could get along properly. History is full of examples of families falling apart when money gets involved. You want your grandchildren to all get along like kissing cousins? Well, if you’re a millionaire businessman leaving your company to your children, I tell you, no fucking chance.

Some of them still live handsomely on the proceeds of the sale but the company itself has gone down the drain because large multi-national companies quite often have no idea how to run a boutique family business which should not have been sold in the first place. Much of a company’s equity exists in the ether and can only be understood by people who personally care about the product and helped build the company.

The Gilberston name is still revered in Essendon - at the club, and throughout the streets, but old RJ, who by all accounts was a top bloke, is turning in his grave tonight.

I’m not a knocker of modern society. I think the world, despite pollution, gets better year by year. But one thing modern society can’t seem to handle is ‘family businesses’. Another Aussie icon bites the dust.

Is Don, Is Broke.