Baking institution Ferguson Plarre’s Bakehouse co-founder Ralph Plarre was recognised for his dedication to the industry with Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).

Ralph, a third generation baker, said he was hugely shocked when he heard he’d received the honour.

“It was a shock. It’s just such a great honour and it was humbling,” he said.

“It was for doing stuff that I love doing. But it’s very special and a very great honour – I can’t describe it in any other way.”

Ralph is the grandson of a baker, who first started a bakery in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne – a business Ralph’s father inherited in 1941. Ralph said it was in those post-war years that he began to tag along with his father to the bakery in the morning, where he’d watch on as the staff, in particular refugee women, worked. It’s these people he considers his mentors.

“These wonderful women, they were from Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Poland. They were salt of the earth people and worked so hard,” he said.

“They helped us grow our business in the 1950s, which had a lot of wholesale.”

In the mid-1960s Ralph’s father received an offer from a real estate to purchase the bakery, and he put it to Ralph: become a baker and pastry cook and they would accept the offer and then build a new bakery, or else he would sell up and retire.

“I just said quite innocuously ‘oh yeah, I’d like to be a baker Dad’,” Ralph said.

“Little did I know that was a pivotal, game-changing decision just made right off the cuff.”

A new bakery followed in Niddrie, with Ralph stepping into a fulltime role, noting that although he hated the 2am starts he loved baking.

As the business grew, Ralph’s role began to change. He brought on a manager to help out, and learned to stand alone in the business when his father retired.

“The day he retired he said to me ‘Ralph it’s all yours. I don’t want to know about it’, so I didn’t have anyone to talk to,” Ralph said.

“At that stage I had a good relationship with Bob Ferguson, which ended up with the amalgamation of Ferguson and Plarre’s in 1980.”

Ferguson Plarre’s Bakehouse grew and today is considered a staple business across Victoria with more than 80 stores in operation. It’s also credited with being a pioneer in the franchise space, after being the first to trial franchising bakeries in 1990.

In addition to his role as co-founder, Ralph continued to serve the industry in other ways, most notably as Australian Baking Society president in 1987, Baking Industry Association of Victoria president from 1996-2002, and he was even inducted into the Australian Society of Baking’s Hall of Fame.

Ralph officially retired from Ferguson Plarre’s Bakehouse 17 years ago, with his sons Steve and Mike stepping in as CEO and Production Manager respectively. But at its heart, it remains a family business.

“It’s a multi-generational family business… so I’m there if the kids want any advice, which sometimes they do,” he said.

“We work together very closely. It’s a lot of fun, but not without its challenges. But at the end of the day there’s nothing better than a family business that work well.”