{"id":813102,"date":"2026-07-20T22:30:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813102\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T22:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:30:24","slug":"farmer-peter-chauncys-firewood-side-hustle-fuels-petrol-station-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813102\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmer Peter Chauncy’s firewood side hustle fuels petrol station success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Struggling financially after drought and bushfire ravaged his farm 40 years ago, Peter Chauncy picked up an axe and started chopping firewood to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

Now, if you have a log fire in your home, chances are that wood has come from Mr Chauncy’s property in the NSW Southern Highlands.<\/p>\n

What began as a way to put food on the table has grown into a multi-million-dollar business servicing half of Australia, one distinctive yellow bag of firewood at a time.<\/p>\n

“I guess I’ve always had to live off the skin of my teeth,” said Mr Chauncy, 70.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Peter Chauncy’s yellow bags of firewood are found at thousands of service stations across four states. (ABC Illawarra: Brooke Chandler)<\/p>\n

The family-run business packs and distributes about 1 million bags of firewood each year.<\/p>\n

The distinctive yellow packaging has become a servo staple, sold at 3,000 locations across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.<\/p>\n

But the Chauncy family’s success was born of some desperately cold and hard times.<\/p>\n

Tragedy, drought hits<\/p>\n

Mr Chauncy initially pursued a career in law and began studying in Sydney, but returned to the family’s sheep and cattle farm at Canyonleigh when his father was diagnosed with cancer.<\/p>\n

“I’d come home to help out while he was ill, thinking he would recover and, of course, he didn’t. Then I decided to stay on,” Mr Chauncy said.<\/p>\n

But more tragedy was to come.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

In the early days, Peter Chauncy had to leave his wife and first baby on weekends to sell homegrown firewood. (ABC Illawarra: Brooke Chandler)<\/p>\n

A bushfire ravaged the 670-hectare farm and, just as it was starting to recover, almost all of eastern Australia was consumed by drought in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

“We went into a four-year drought, which I believe was worse than anything we’ve seen since,” Mr Chauncy said.<\/p>\n

“I was going broke \u2026 I wasn’t going to give in.”<\/p>\n

With a growing family, Mr Chauncy had to get creative to stay afloat financially, and started selling livestock along the Hume Highway.<\/p>\n

He also sold wood from fallen trees and branches found on his property by doorknocking in Sydney, working his way up to wealthier suburbs.<\/p>\n

“After about three weeks, I had enough business where I didn’t have to knock on a door,” Mr Chauncy said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Most of Peter Chauncy’s firewood is chopped at his Canyonleigh farm, south of Sydney. (ABC Illawarra: Brooke Chandler)<\/p>\n

His boots-on-the-ground business quickly evolved into his biggest income stream, involving dozens of machines and plenty of full-time staff.<\/p>\n

“I never said no, which is probably a fault really because these days, you name it, we go there,” Mr Chauncy said.<\/p>\n

“I was initially dealing with small business owners but now I deal with all the big companies, mainly franchisees.”<\/p>\n

\"yellow<\/p>\n

Peter Chauncy says many service stations were initially hesitant to sell firewood. (ABC Illawarra: Brooke Chandler)<\/p>\n

300 tonnes of wood loaded daily<\/p>\n

At his home office, Mr Chauncy points to a long, digitised list of transport operators he uses to haul his product.<\/p>\n

“On any given day, there could be up to 25 trucks being loaded nationwide, and they are mainly 12-tonne capacity vehicles,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"firewood<\/p>\n

Peter Chauncy says he used a chainsaw to chop firewood in the early days of the business. (ABC Illawarra: Brooke Chandler)<\/p>\n

The business holds contracts with the NSW and Queensland forestry corporations, which use the silvicultural practice of thinning to remove specific trees from overcrowded areas.<\/p>\n

A diverse range of employees, from those who have been working in the business for 25 years, to European backpackers on fleeting stays, then chop the wood using purpose-built machinery.<\/p>\n

The logs are then weighed into 10 and 15-kilogram bags.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Valetin Nessel has been working at the Canyonleigh property. (ABC Illawarra: Brooke Chandler)<\/p>\n

Busier than ever<\/p>\n

Despite a push to renewable energy and the international fuel crisis, Mr Chauncy said his business was experiencing record-breaking demand.<\/p>\n

“We had the best April \u2026 which is surprising considering we had to put a fuel levy on our products and I would have expected it to have had a fairly big impact on sales,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Throughout the pandemic, we sold much larger amounts of wood because I think people were at home and everybody seemed to have bought a fire pit.”\"Three<\/p>\n

Peter Chauncy’s business has been stocking Australian homes and fire buckets for four decades. (ABC Illawarra: Brooke Chandler)<\/p>\n

Mr Chauncy admits his business would be impacted significantly if NSW were to join Victoria and Western Australia, which banned native forest logging two years ago.<\/p>\n

“It’d be a challenge we’d have to face at the time. But at this stage, we certainly have a lot of timber ahead of us from private property,” he said.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on four decades of his business, Mr Chauncy has no regrets about giving up a career in law, saying his main motivation has always been providing for his family.<\/p>\n

“Family is everything for me \u2026 and that’s what I work for and what I live for,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Struggling financially after drought and bushfire ravaged his farm 40 years ago, Peter Chauncy picked up an axe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6634,64,63,99,388030,363807,25980,388029,388032,388031],"class_list":["post-813102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-agriculture","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-canyonleigh","tag-diversify","tag-farmer","tag-firewood","tag-peter-chauncy","tag-southern-highlands-nsw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}