Kerry cooks up new baking centre of excellence

Irish ingredients company Kerry Group is poised to plough $13.7 million into a new centre for excellence for baked products in Altona, Victoria.

The centre for excellence will feature new manufacturing equipment including an automated baking line, pastry line, automated cake and doughnut decorating, freezing and packaging lines, slicing equipment and silos.

"We have obtained strong endorsement from our Irish parent for establishing the Kerry Centre of Excellence for bakery products in Victoria, which is expected to deliver a range of new products catering to the discerning requirements of consumers in Australia and the broader Asia Pacific region," Kerry's Australian spokesperson Keven Doyle said.

The new centre will be established at a newly renovated site will create almost 120 new jobs in the region, according to Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development Peter Ryan.

"This investment will create 118 new highly skilled jobs and new export opportunities for Victorian food products,” he said.

"The development of this new $13.7 million bakery operation will feature state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and investment in research and development.

"This illustrates Victoria's attractiveness to global food processing companies and will allow the company to look to export products into growing Asian markets."