Men’s natural grooming startup bypasses the warehouse and rides two camels 30km through rural NSW to hand-deliver their first rack of stock to Coles Medowie for their launch into Australia
When men’s natural skincare and deodorant startup Two Dudes decided to make its first delivery to Coles, a van wasn’t going to cut it.
Instead, co-founders Michael McRae and Tomas Tappin rode two camels, one flying a Coles flag, one flying a Two Dudes flag, 30 kms along the beach, through the rural NSW town of Medowie, and up to the front doors of its local Coles to hand-deliver the brand’s first rack of stock to the supermarket.
The store manager came outside and received the delivery at the front door as Australia’s first supermarket delivery on camel back took place this week.
Dave, the store manager at Coles Medowie, was very surprised to come out and see two giant camels standing out the front of the front doors of the store, ready to drop off a fresh slate of stock.
“When I went out the front to receive a new shipment of stock for a new range, I didn’t expect they would be arriving on camel back!,” said Dave.
“It was a really funny surprise, and the Two Dudes guys really delivered with their energy along with their actual delivery. Not your average day at work, it was a lot of fun, and I hope we can do more camel deliveries for a laugh.”
It marks the beginning of what is one of the most significant retail distribution expansions for a New Zealand-founded consumer brand in recent years. Two Dudes – which launched in a Christchurch garage in 2020 – is now stocked in more than 2,500 retail locations across Australia and New Zealand, including 870 Coles stores and soon 970 Woolworths stores nationally, having scaled from approximately 500 stores in New Zealand alone.
“We’re essentially going from 500 stores in New Zealand to about 2,500 across Australia and New Zealand,” says co-founder Michael McRae, now based in the brand’s Sydney office leading the Australian expansion.
The rapid scaling has created a wider supply chain ripple effect across New Zealand, with local suppliers, logistics companies and manufacturing partners increasing staffing to manage the surge in demand across both markets.
“We’re proud that as we’ve grown, we’ve been able to help create jobs not only within our own business, but also across the wider network of Kiwi suppliers and providers we work with,” says McRae.
The expansion also prompted a significant operational shift, with Two Dudes relocating to a new Christchurch head office in February 2026 and growing its team from three employees last year to four full-time staff as it builds the infrastructure to support national distribution across Australia and New Zealand simultaneously.
Tomas Tappin, co-founder: “We’d been building toward Australia for a long time, as we’ve been only in New Zealand up to this point, and suddenly it was real. Showing up on camels felt like the right energy for day one. It’s absurd, it’s us, and it gets people talking about something that genuinely matters: men’s mental health; something that we advocate for in everything that we do.”
The distribution milestone coincides with the launch of “Hump Day for Men’s Mental Health” – a campaign donating $1 for every unit sold at Coles directly to R U OK?, with Coles in talks to match it. It’s backed by Movember data showing suicide remains the leading cause of death for Australian men aged 15-44. Two Dudes raised over $150,000 for Movember last year, breaking the New Zealand fundraising record.
“We’ve always believed there was space for a men’s care brand that didn’t take itself too seriously but still delivered a genuinely premium product,” says Tappin. “To now see Two Dudes on shelves right across Australia is pretty surreal for a business that started in a New Zealand garage.”
