Solar Bollard Lighting from Brendale moves to prime time

Solar Bollard Lighting moves to prime time

Multiple Moreton Bay Region Business Excellence and Innovation Awards winner, Solar Bollard Lighting is heading to prime time, with Channel 10 soon to feature the Brendale company.

Solar Bollard Lighting will appear in the new series of Australia By Design Innovation, which will air on both Channel 10 and Prime Video in January.

Solar Bollard Lighting has developed vandal and impact-resistant bollards which are also suitable for flood-prone areas and regions affected by cyclones.

They will appear on the fifth series of the Innovation show, which first aired in 2017, though the exact broadcast date is not yet known.

2019 Moreton Bay Business and Innovation Awards

Twelve months ago, Solar Bollard Lighting also hit the headline winning the Moreton Bay Region’s Environment and Sustainability Award, Exporting Excellence title and being named Business of the Year.

The awards are not being held this year due to COVID-19, which arrived just weeks after the 2019 presentations impacting markets and turnover.

However, the shutdown did open up opportunities within Solar Bollard Lighting.

“The shutdown affected parts of our export market,” says founder Mike Arieni, “but it also gave us time to upgrade the website, work on marketing documents, apply for trademarks. It made us look harder at production.”

Solar Bollard Lighting on the way back

Mike admitted they had three tough months, but Solar Bollard Lighting maintained its staffing levels and is back to 60/70 per cent capacity.

The business has tendered for work at the Heron’s Head Park for the Port of San Francisco and has recently added new agents in Morocco, Costa Rica, Chile, Paraguay, five more in the US and one more in Canada.

It has new manufacturers, sales and distribution agents for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain – with discussions underway in Portugal – and is represented in 19 countries across five continents.

Manufacturing in Moreton Bay

Mike, the managing director and designer, is also investigating buying new premises, with his preference to stay in the Moreton Bay Region

“I’d like to stay in Brendale. I like the area. There’s a good network and good business people,” says Mike, who started the business in 2004.

Adding to the business’s accolades, Solar Bollard Lighting won this year’s Australia International Good Design Awards Good Design gold trophy for Product Design