Trudi Yip knows the secret to success.
“When you grow up in this place, it’s in your blood,” she told SBS News.
“I’ve seen this business grow, thrive and change but we've kept one thing going; our customer service is key.”
“Always be there for your customer. We are here six days a week.”
Trudi, 49, is among the third generation of workers selling vegetables at family business Yep Lum & Co at Sydney Markets in the inner west suburb of Flemington.
Henry Lum Yip's grandaughter Trudi works in the family business. Source: SBS
It supplies vegetables including ginger, garlic, pumpkins, onions and potatoes to supermarkets and restaurants across the city and was founded in 1940 by Trudi’s grandfather Henry Lum Yip.
This week, on 4 September, the Yip family will celebrate eight decades in the business, and trade is still going strong.
Henry was born in the village of Chien Mei in Guandong, China, in 1903. He arrived in Sydney on the ship SS Victoria in 1921, sponsored by his uncle who already had a produce store in Hay Street.
But the Australian family history stretches back even further, to Henry’s grandfather Fong Sui Yip, who started a vegetable stall at Sydney’s Belmore Markets in the 1880s.
Henry was 37 when he opened Yep Lum & Co, a produce merchant store selling potatoes, onions and pumpkins.
Henry Lum Yip founded the family business in Sydney's Haymarket. Source: Supplied by Danyal Syed
As his business grew he also expanded into other ventures, including a Chinese restaurant in Adelaide, as a way to sponsor Chinese migrants and give them work.
Over the years, he continued to reunite families, sponsoring around 70 Chinese migrants. Many arrived as students from China and Hong Kong after World War II.
He was also President of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce for several years in the 1950s.
Six of Henry’s eight children were born above his Haymarket store, including Neuman, who works alongside Trudi at the store today and turns 84 this year.
He says he began carrying bags of vegetables for his father at a young age.
“It was definitely hard work in the old days. There was no such thing as forklifts and pallets, it was all done on the shoulders.”
Bags of potatoes weighed 60 kilograms and were carried using steel bag hooks, he said.
He still starts work at 2am, as he always has done, every day except Sunday.
“Well, I was going to retire when I turned 65, but then I thought to myself, what am I going to do?” he said.
Neuman’s wife Eileen, 74, also works at the market store along with their four sons, Henry's grandchildren.
She has extensively researched the Yip family history and written a book about it.
Neuman's wife Eileen has written a book about the family history. Source: SBS
"Looking back to my father-in-law [Henry Lum Yip] who migrated as a teenager, he worked so hard to provide for his family and for relatives back in China," she said.
“It’s pretty amazing isn’t it?” Trudi said.
“My grandfather would be really proud, it brings a tear to my eye, actually.”
With more people cooking at home during the coronavirus pandemic, the family has adapted its business model, with 60 per cent of their supplies are now going to independent supermarkets rather than restaurants.
The Yip family source fresh produce from growers in NSW and interstate. Source: SBS
And they’ve been forced to manage spikes in demand for certain products, too.
“Back in March, when the panic buying started, alongside people buying toilet paper, they were buying ginger,” Trudi said. “Ginger prices went through the roof because there was a national shortage.
“Our pallets of ginger would come in and people were trying to help themselves, so my cousin literally had to jump on the pallets just to stop them taking it.”
The Yep Lum & Co business specialises in gourmet potatoes and sells 30 different varieties including purple bliss.
The Yip family began selling potatoes 80 years ago. Source: SBS
“Look at the intensity of the colour, it’s just amazing,” said Trudi holding up a cut potato. “It’s perfect for making mash, just look at that violet colour.”
“[Purple Bliss] is a new thing in Australia but if you go back to Peru, where potatoes originally came from, there are 5,000 varieties and this is just one of them.”
Sydney University lecturer Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson specialises in Chinese-Australian history and says the family's story is part of a much broader pattern of Chinese migrants working in the produce industry, "which is an important part of Australian history".
"Many of our Australian towns and cities could not have been sustained without their agricultural technology and irrigation processes," she said.
"And by building networks with customers and suppliers, they've sustained this business across very tumultuous periods in Australian and world history. That is an achievement that is hard to do. And it says something about the strength of the bonds in their family."
Trudi holding traditional steel bag hooks. Source: SBS
As the family prepares to celebrate the milestone with a big party at Sydney Markets on Friday, Trudi is already looking forward to the next one.
“I would like to see it reach 100 years in my lifetime, so let’s see how we go,” she said.
