Owner Insights
Owner Insights
Podcast Description
Owner Insights is a podcast that dives into the stories of business owners who have built great businesses. Hosted by James Orchard, Managing Director of Accru Harris Orchard, each episode is a candid conversation with a different business owner. Together they explore the business origins, challenges, and lessons learned along the way. These aren’t step-by-step guides on how to run a business but insightful discussions filled with personal stories of growth, resilience, and unique paths to success. Join us to discover what it truly takes to build a great business from those who've done it.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast explores themes of entrepreneurship, resilience, and personal growth, with episodes highlighting individual journeys like Angus Sobels’ purposeful wealth creation from loss and Scott Salisbury’s rise in the construction industry and football. Each conversation delves into the unique challenges and successes faced by business owners, offering lessons grounded in personal experiences.
Owner Insights is a podcast that dives into the stories of business owners who have built great businesses. Hosted by James Orchard, Managing Director of Accru Harris Orchard, each episode is a candid conversation with a different business owner. Together they explore the business origins, challenges, and lessons learned along the way. These aren’t step-by-step guides on how to run a business but insightful discussions filled with personal stories of growth, resilience, and unique paths to success. Join us to discover what it truly takes to build a great business from those who’ve done it.
What really caused South Australia’s devastating algal bloom?
In this episode of Owner Insights, Lester Marshall, founder of Coffin Bay Oyster Farm, shares his personal view that the toxic algae affecting South Australia’s coastal waters in 2025 was likely introduced by two cargo ships.
Drawing on more than 30 years of experience farming the state’s waters, Lester explains why he believes these vessels may have introduced the algae through ballast water discharge – offering a thought-provoking perspective from someone who describes himself as a ”canary in the coal mine” for the state's marine environment.
But this episode is about far more than the algal bloom. Lester's business journey is one of the most remarkable stories of resilience we've featured on Owner Insights:
- Losing everything at 26: How rising interest rates forced a 26-year-old Lester to cull 3,000 sheep and walk away from farming.
- Starting from scratch: The journey of founding Coffin Bay Oyster Farm in 1992 and helping build one of Australia's most recognised oyster brands.
- Surviving the perfect storm: Navigating a brutal series of setbacks since 2016, including disease outbreaks, COVID, market shutdowns and algal blooms.
- Fighting for survival: How the business survived as staffing fell from 18 people to just two.
Lester reflects on the highs, the lows and what has kept him going in a candid conversation about resilience, reinvention and the determination required to keep moving forward when so much was beyond his control.
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Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
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