COMPANY OVERVIEW

Our history

The organisation consists of a highly-integrated group of companies owned and operated by a family whose history can be traced back to the 1840s. This family purchased Blundstone Pty Ltd in 1932, amalgamating their footwear manufacturing operations under the Blundstone name.

Despite having grown into one of the world’s most recognisable boot brands, the company remains Tasmanian and retains its family values.

In 2000, Blundstone acquired the iconic John Bull brand, which was founded in New Zealand in 1934.

OUR HOMES

Our headquarters are based in Moonah, Tasmania, housing our administration, sales, marketing, communications, quality management, customer service and logistics sections. It's also home to our research and design centre and gumboot factory, with the capacity to manufacture 400,000 pairs of gumboots a year. Blundstone also maintains modern facilities in Melbourne, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand.

OUR MANUFACTURING

We are committed to making the highest quality boots for everyday work and comfort. We manufacture our leather footwear overseas with current sourcing from Vietnam, India, China and Mexico. Our gumboots are manufactured at our headquarters in Hobart. We employ our own personnel at the overseas facilities to ensure the standard of manufacturing meets our stringent quality standards. Blundstone is a Quality Endorsed Company to ISO9001.

OUR COMMITMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT

Blundstone is committed to policies which are framed with reference to sustainable development – to help shape the agricultural, industrial and commercial profile of our world.
We maximise our use of recycled and recyclable materials in our manufacturing.
Our primary cardboard box is also a single material 100% recyclable package, from renewable resources.
We minimise the use of raw material, chemicals and fossil fuels. In 2011, we became signatories to the Australian Packaging Covenant and have implemented an Action Plan against which we present an Annual Report.

OUR COMMITMENT TO THE COMMUNITY

Blundstone highly values the people who work with us - our suppliers, our customers and our local community.
Our core values ensure legal, ethical and responsible practices are adopted throughout the company at all times.
This commitment has enabled us to exist for over 140 years and we believe it will underpin our continued success.
Blundstone is a proud supporter of its local communities and an active contributor to many charities.

OUR PEOPLE

The passion of our people has helped determine how our products and our company have evolved. Our people are dedicated, highly skilled, innovative and focused on our customers. We seek and attract people who understand that the power of the team will get the best results for the people who decide to wear our products. In our supplier operations overseas, we are committed to ensuring that the people making our product are employed ethically and are free from exploitation. At a local level, this means that employment standards within our suppliers exceed the minimum government-prescribed standards in the country of operation.

OUR BRANDS

Blundstone owns two boot brands - Blundstone (sold globally) and John Bull (sold mainly in New Zealand). At Blundstone, we understand that our most valuable assets are our brands. We are dedicated to strengthening the positioning of our brands through our marketing and sales activities and through how we relate to the community. Blundstone monitors our brand strength with extensive market research conducted regularly across our domestic markets. Market research reports in 2011 indicated that Blundstone is Australia’s best-known, most-loved and most-worn boot brand and John Bull is the number one work boot brand in New Zealand.

OUR PRODUCTS

Since 1870, Blundstone has made the toughest, no-nonsense footwear for work and play. Decades of innovative design and production mean Blundstone now oversees a global supply chain bringing together the best ideas, components and designs to complement a wide range of products - from the iconic elastic-sided boots loved worldwide, to gumboots, lace-up safety footwear for men and women, heavy industrial footwear, school shoes and casual boots. Our products are developed by a team based in Hobart who use the best resources available from all over the world to develop footwear that keeps pushing the boundaries. Our ongoing research and development activity sees constant improvement in comfort, protection, performance and aesthetics to match the great fit and value. The Blundstone and John Bull boots we produce today are just as tough as they’ve always been, but are now a lot more comfortable too.