Tyler’s Rural started in Rupanyup in 1988 and has since expanded to branches in Stawell and Murtoa.

Owner Kelvin Tyler said the business started with himself, his brother Adrian and one other employee, but they now employed 14 staff.

“We took over the business from Ron and Marg Lingham – my brother worked for them for about 16 years and when they wanted to retire, they offered the business to him,” he said.

“He approached me to become a partner in the business – we were very fortunate to get that opportunity.”

The business expanded to a Murtoa branch the following year, with the brothers again taking over an existing business.

“Our brother Terry was working on the family farm and he decided to join us and manage the Murtoa store,” he said.

The final expansion for Tyler’s Rural was almost four years ago, when they opened a branch in Stawell.

Mr Tyler said the Stawell branch was needed to complement their agronomy services.

“We had a lot of agronomy clients down at Stawell, meaning people were travelling a long way to support us,” he said. “So it made sense to move into that area.”

Mr Tyler said the business had continued to grow and evolve over the past 30 years.

“There have been significant changes,” he said.

“When we started out, we were mostly a hardware store, with rural services as well.

“However, now it’s the other way around – the rural side has grown significantly.”

Mr Tyler said the business was fortunate to have the support of the community in each town.

“The majority of our business is pretty much from locals, especially with our agronomy services,” he said.

“In the early days, people didn’t like to travel too far, so we have a lot of loyalty.”

Mr Tyler said while there was no plans in place to expand the business further, he didn’t know what was around the corner.

“We never had any plans to expand in the first place, so you don’t know what’s going to happen down the track,” he said.

“We will continue along doing what we are doing, partnering with the community ensuring a strong and sustainable future.

“In the short term, we want to keep up with all the new technology that is coming out in agriculture – there is so much that is changing at the moment.”

To celebrate 30 years, the business had a special celebration earlier this month.

“Our anniversary was actually on January 2, but we didn’t celebrate it until a couple of weeks ago,” Mr Kelvin said.