A strong local identity is heaps good for business. Just ask South Australia

This column is about how a plucky local iced coffee beat the biggest beverage brand in the world. We’ll come back to that shortly, but first some background.

It’s nice to have a nine-word business rule that delivers the right answer in every situation. Ours may not work for you.

For us, that rule opens up clear lessons for every decision. Seared in by an intense period of frustration and pain.

We set up our place after an unpleasant few years as employees in a firm with private equity owners.

They viewed the business through a swaggering spreadsheet growth prism that viewed all staff as easily replaceable units of production.