Bushman family sales trip 1987

Bushman Fridges – A Family Passion

 

This is our first sales trip around Australia in 1987, with the family in tow.

We’ve got the trusty Ford Falcon station wagon with the fridges in the trailer. No internet, no website, just good old fashioned customer service. And to this day, that hasn’t changed. Our customers are still at the heart of everything we do.

The kid on the left is Paul, he’s now the managing director.  His dad Gary started the company more than 38 years ago, and still works here every day.

Welcome to Bushman.

The Bushman Fridges Promise

  • Reliable shield icon
    Reliability
    • 38+ years of experience in every fridge
    • Strong construction
    • Simple electronics
    • Worlds best components
    • Australia wide warranties
  • Low power and efficient icon
    Efficiency
    • Unique Bushman designed cooling systems
    • Bigger cooling units
    • More extensive ventilation
    • Lower run times
    • Lower amp draw
  • Customer Service
    Service
    • Speak to a fridge expert directly
    • No call centres
    • No run-around
    • Just good-old customer service 🙂

Our Business Philosophy – Keeping it Simple

At Bushman, we believe that simplicity is the key to reliability.

We think that a fridge should stay cold regardless of what you throw at it, and should always be at the temperature you set it to. That’s why we build all our fridges out of steel. We don’t make them out of plastic, and we certainly don’t include unnecessary gimmicks like wifi or bluetooth.

If you’re after Australia’s most reliable, efficient and easy to use fridges, you’re in the right place.

History

Our business began in 1982 Melbourne Australia, when Gary Kottman began DP Refrigeration. With a background in engineering and a passion for genuine customer service, DP Refrigeration grew quickly. Within a couple of years, Gary had developed a national distribution network for Consul gas fridges in Australia.

Over the subsequent 17 years, DP Refrigeration became one of Consul/Whirlpools largest gas fridge global distributors. We offered customer support to customers and distributed high quality gas fridges and freezers to some of the most remote parts of this great land.

In 1989, Bushman Portable Fridges was established as a division of DP Refrigeration. Bushman developed The Original SC 35 over 2 years from 1989 to 1991. During this time the Bushman was subjected to all manner of abuse in a wide variety of off road applications and any weaknesses assessed and modified until the final prototype was achieved. In essence, this is the same fridge we sell today.

In 2011 Consul stopped making LPG fridges. We launched the brand Arcticold to design and import offgrid fridges into Australia. But a few years later, decided it was easier for our customers if we had just one brand name, Bushman Fridges.

Since then, our product range has grown to a point where we now stock a range of mobile and offgrid products, as well as accessories. We have a national independent dealer network for Bushman, which covers all major towns and cities in Australia.

Our goals going forward are simple; make the best quality offgrid fridges and accessories possible and continue to support our independent retailers and customers. The last 35+ years have been great; the next 35 might be even better.

What Next?