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Paino family
Salvatore Paino, the patriarch, arrived from Filicudi in 1913, and began business with the Roma Fruit Palace at 62 Market Street in 1921/1922, and in 1928 extended it to the two neighbouring shops at 58-60 with the Fremantle Fish Supply, which would eventually become Sealanes. His sons Victor, Sam and Anthony joined him in the business of ship provisioning, followed by Victor's sons, Mark and Paul. Salvatore died in 1966. Sealanes moved from Market Street to Marine Terrace in 1972.
In the photo, courtesy Fremantle Library, Salvatore is holding his son Con's hand.
Painos at work. Courtesy WA Rock Lobster Fishers’ Federation (Facebook).
Sam Paino. Courtesy WA Rock Lobster Fishers’ Federation (Facebook).
Victor Paino. Courtesy WA Rock Lobster Fishers’ Federation (Facebook).
Sealanes, Marine Terrace. Courtesy WA Rock Lobster Fishers’ Federation (Facebook).
Victor Paino in the 58 Market Street building in 2016. Photo courtesy Carmelo Amalfi from Freo StreetWise for April 2016.
WA Rock Lobster Fishers’ Federation (from Facebook):
The Paino Family – A Sicilian Success Story
The Vergona family of Fremantle and the Re family in Perth were among the first Italian importers in WA. Antonino Vergona arrived in 1890 from the Aeolian Island of Salina in Sicily, setting up the Roma Fruit Palace at 62 Market Street in 1912.
Salvatore Paino had arrived from another small Aeolian island of Filicudi in October 1911 onboard the S.S. Zieten. He arrived penniless and unable to speak English and was just 18 years of age. He had spent 5 years working in Argentina prior to his arrival in Fremantle. Upon arrival he initially found work in Wellington Mill for 8 years, later moving back to Fremantle. Like many Italian immigrants, Salvatore would visit the Roma Fruit Palace and buy Italian goods.
One day, Salvatore asked Mr. Vergona for a job and he obliged. At some point, Salvatore also asked for his daughter's hand in marriage, and in 1920 he married Maria Vergona. Antonino eventually returned to Sicily because he was going blind and the business was left to his son-in-law Salvatore to continue. He went on to grow the business with the help of Mary and her brothers, Bob and Joe. In 1928 the shop was extended to the two neighbouring shops at 58-60 with the Fremantle Fish Supply, becoming a retail fish shop.
At the start, the Vergona and Paino families occupied both floors of the building at 58 and 60 Market Street where up to 20 members of the families lived and worked. Salvatore and Maria went on to have five children; Cono, Anthony, Helena, Sam and Victor.
Cono, the eldest, tragically died at age 5 in 1926 when playing on the roof of a house in Willam Street with his brother Anthony. The Coroner returned a verdict that the deceased came to his death following an electric shock caused through defective insulation of an electric wire on the verandah roof of a house. Thomas Jubb, in his attempts to rescue the children, was also electrocuted when touching the charged roof, but survived to rescue Anthony. Anthony was lucky to survive the incident. Anthony was later accused of having collaborated in the HMAS Sydney’s sinking in 1941. He was the last civilian on the Australian cruiser and, almost didn’t make it off after bringing supplies to the ill-fated ship. Anthony died in 2014 age 92, his hands still bearing the burn scar of the electrical shock. He had escaped death twice in his life.
While Anthony was being conscripted to fight for Australia in WWII, his father Salvatore was interned as an Italian Prisoner of War in Harvey for 5 years – despite the fact that Salvatore had become an Australian citizen in 1920 and his brother-in-law had served in the RAF. After the war, Salvatore’s remaining sons Victor, Sam and Anthony joined him in the business of ship provisioning. In 1952, and at the age of only 15, Victor was plucked from Aquinas to join his father’s business. From seafood retail work, Victor soon graduated to driving the truck that transported freshly caught produce from Geraldton and the north, Esperance or Bunbury back to Fremantle, placing, for example, snapper on fresh ice to bring it back to the market.
Between the mid 1950s and 1960s, there was an increase in naval contracts and business with passenger ships carrying migrants to Fremantle. Accordingly, the seafood business was soon supplemented with the introduction of and increased sales in overall grocery lines. This increase saw the family run business supply frozen and fresh food, fish and other continental goods to the Australian Navy and ships from all around the world. Sons Sam and Victor became joint managing directors and bought out their siblings. Salvatore died in 1966.
Both Paino brothers worked long hours, often 18 hours per day, 7 days per week. They widened the product line to include small goods and much-needed ships supplies to a growing port that dominated Australia’s western seaboard. Before long, their customers had upgraded from local shoppers to navies and commercial shipping. They lived through the arrival of refrigeration, but before it came ships had an even greater need of fresh produce. Prestigious customers used their company, such as Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal Yacht Britannia on a trip to Australia in 1966.
It soon became obvious that the name Fremantle Fish Supply was not an accurate trading name for a business expanding into general shipping, so a second trading name, Port Providoring began to appear on invoices to ships. With the division of trade, the two main areas of the business became foodservice and ship supply. By the 1970s, the business had exceeded the space of the current premises and the business was moved to Marine Terrace, South Fremantle with a purpose built warehouse and office space in 1972. The company was also renamed Sealanes during this time to link the major activities of food service, wholesale seafood distribution and ship supply.
Sealanes began a period of rapid growth during the 1980s, with the expansion of the premises on Marine Terrace and the supply of new markets, such as the visiting Japanese tuna boats and growing tourism to Western Australia and the increase in restaurants, cafes and hotels.
In the 1990s with the expansion of visiting crews to Australia, Sealanes opened three branches to supply ships and offshore oil rigs in Port Hedland and Karratha in Western Australia and Darwin in the Northern Territory. In 1993, a retail fish shop was also opened on the premises, reminiscent of the earlier days.
Victor was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia in 2018 for significant services to the seafood retailing industry, to ship supply services, and to the community through support of charitable groups such as Rotary and the Fremantle Hospital. He was a founding director of the Fremantle Hospital Medical Research Foundation. He was made a life member of the Australian Shipping Supply Association. He was the first businessman to be inducted in the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame for having turned Sealanes Seafood Market into a top 500 Australian company.
Victor sold his share in 2004, leaving Sam as the owner. His daughter Leeanda became chief executive in 2004, after her father had a stroke. Sam died in 2012. In 2013, WA’s hospitality industry achievement award was given to Sam Paino, believed to be the first posthumous recipient of the lifetime achievement award. In 2016, the Paino family sold its historic Fremantle food service business to Melbourne-based Superior Food Services. From humble origins as a grocery store in Fremantle, Sealanes had grown into a well-known seafood and general food distributor with a warehouse in Palmyra, 50 refrigerated vehicles and branches in Port Hedland, Karratha and Darwin. The business had been in the Paino family for four generations and is still recognised as one of the most successful Fremantle businesses.
References
https://www.wafic.org.au/appreciate-wise-words-local.../
https://www.afr.com/.../clients-are-always-right-night...
https://thewest.com.au/.../paino-family-sells-historic...
https://www.businessnews.com.au/.../Sealanes-suffers-loss...
https://www.sealanes.com.au/company-history
https://www.businessnews.com.au/Company/Sealanes
https://www.facebook.com/.../Freo.../posts/1031297203629194/
https://heraldonlinejournal.com/.../posthumous-award-for.../
The West Australian, Wednesday 28 April 1926, Page 14.
References and Links
Treadgold, Tim 1993, 'Clients are always right, night and day', Fin Rev, 10 September (on the Paino family and the history of Sealanes).
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 4 April, 2022 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/paino.html (it was last updated on 22 January, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.