A $25 million co-investment plan being promoted by the Labor government to save struggling fruit and vegetable processor, SPC Ardmona, will involve the closure of two plants.
SPC Ardmona has struggled to compete due to the combined pressures of intense competition from imports and the high Australian dollar, and the Labor government today committed to back a modernisation plan by the company with co-investment.
SPC Ardmona currently operates across three sites in Shepparton, Kyabram and Mooroopna in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley and it employs around 1500 people currently on a casual and full-time basis.
A restructuring and upgrade plan would involve consolidating operations in Shepparton. It would also mean upgrading technology and creating new product capacity and packaging options as well as strengthening its supply chain.
“Without a serious upgrade to its operations SPC Ardmona has said it may be forced to close in mid-2014,” said Industry Minister, Senator Kim Carr.
“This would be an enormous blow to the thousands of workers the company employs and those in the agricultural supply chain and would result in a significant loss in grower activities in the region.
“Federal Labor is not going to stand by and see this happen.”
“I am also calling on the Victorian government to acknowledge the importance of this investment and to match our support dollar for dollar.”
According to SPC Ardmona, if both government support packages can be secured then SPC Ardmona’s parent company, Coca-Cola Amatil, will also significantly invest in the business and commit to keeping it open in Shepparton until at least 2020.
Peter Kelly, SPC Ardmona's managing director, said the announcement was a significant step in securing the long-term future of the company, and SPC Ardmona was now waiting for a definitive decision from the Victorian government.
“An investment package of this scale will be game-changing for us. It will see us develop innovative Australian-made products at competitive prices. It will allow us to implement world-class efficiency improvements consolidated into our Shepparton site with new plant and equipment, including state-of-the art packaging machinery and technologies to support our innovation pipeline,” he said.
It's the latest in a series of government announcements that seek to show support for the food manufacturing sector in the lead up to the election.
Mondelez International received a $16 million pledge from opposition leader Tony Abbott to help fund a $66 million upgrade of its Hobart Cadbury factory.
And last week the
Labor Party committed $18 million to the struggling food manufacturer,
Simplot, which announced in June its vegetable processing facilities in Bathurst in New South Wales
and Devonport in Tasmania may close.
The NSW government has also offered food processor Simplot a payroll tax rebate for the next three years to help save its Bathurst plant.
