Thursday, June 6, 2013

Hundreds of food industry jobs at risk

AAP

Hundreds of food industry jobs are at risk as the company behind iconic brands Edgell and Birds Eye considers the closure of plants in NSW and Tasmania.

US-based multinational Simplot says food manufacturing plants at Bathurst and Devonport will shut down if they can't become competitive.

The Bathurst operation employs 167 permanent staff and the Devonport plant 158, but hundreds more are employed as casuals.

The company says the Bathurst plant will close midway through 2014 if its financial performance can't be improved.

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The Devonport operation has been given two months to produce a five-year plan or face closure in three to five years.

Simplot Australia's managing director Terry O'Brien said the high costs associated with manufacturing in Australia meant the company could not compete with cheap imports.

The high Australian dollar had made a bad situation worse, he said.

"The frozen and canned vegetable categories have been chronic profit under-performers for years, regardless of the value of the Australian dollar," Mr O'Brien said in a statement.

The company arrived in Australia in 1995 and boasts international sales of more than $5 billion annually.

As well as Edgell and Birds Eye, its Australian brands include Leggo's, Chiko, John West and Lean Cuisine.

Mr O'Brien said Simplot Australia would focus on finding ways to make the plants viable when it met with government, employees, unions and growers.

"If insufficient opportunities are identified, we will be forced to close our Bathurst plant after the next corn season," he said.

"Our Devonport plant will be required to produce a five-year improvement plan with satisfactory outcomes or face the prospect of a longer-term (three- to five-year) closure."

Tasmanian Liberal senator Richard Colbeck, who last year chaired a select committee on Australian food processing, said government-imposed costs like the carbon tax were to blame.

"It is time the Gillard government started removing barriers and costs for Australian business rather than imposing them," he said.

Tasmania's Labor government was preparing for urgent talks with Mr O'Brien on Wednesday night.

"Simplot is an iconic industry on the northwest coast and the government will do whatever it can do to assist the company," Deputy Premier Bryan Green said.

Source: http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/hundreds-of-food-industry-jobs-at-risk-20130605-2npy4.html

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