Construction of an $8 million infant formula milk plant at Camperdown is expected to begin within weeks with plans for a possible multi-million-dollar extension already on the cards.
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Stage one of the Camperdown Dairy project will cost between $6 million and $8 million, and will be built on a 10-acre greenfield site on the Old Geelong Road creating about a dozen jobs.
If plans for further expansion for the infant formula business on the site were given the OK, it would eventually grow to a $50m project which had the potential to create up to 40 extra jobs.
Australian Dairy Nutritionals Group chief executive officer Peter Skene, which owns Camperdown Dairy Company, said it was pushing ahead with stage one of the project despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
"They key message is, we're still planning to do everything regardless of COVID-19. We're not waning from that," he said.
"It's good to see investment in the dairy industry in western Victoria."
The new plant would produce infant formula initially for the Australian market and be supplied by the company's farms which were all going organic, he said.
"It's a small dryer and evaporator and mixing plant and we'll end up with our own brands of infant formula," Mr Skene said.
"We are looking to see whether we can gear that plant up considerably.
"We see this as a stepping stone to a much larger investment."
The possible plant expansion is yet to be given shareholder or board approval but would be more focused on export - although the company plans to apply for an export licence for both projects.
An expanded plant would also include a canning line. "It will be a full vertical integration where we'll own the farms all the way through to the tin," Mr Skene said.
"That's where we want to arrive at. So we're just taking it a step at a time."
Within the next five years, the company is also hoping to relocate the rest of its business to the site.
Camperdown Dairy currently produces bottled milk and yoghurt at the former Bonlac site on the outskirts of the town.
"We were doing butter but we've just pulled the butter plant out to expand the yoghurt," Mr Skene said.
"Subject to finding the funding and the right customers for the big plant, that's where our home will be and it will be quite a big factory then."
Mr Skene said the company had spent the last three months refining the layout of the inside of the building.
"Some of the plant equipment that we bought to go in it is being 3D scanned and set up in a shed elsewhere to finalise the layout," he said.
The company also announced this week that had secured the exclusive right to manufacture, distribute and sell The Collective branded products in Australia in a deal that was expected to bring in between $7 million and $9 million in revenue over the next 12 months.
Camperdown Dairy Company currently manufactures Epicurean Dairy's range of The Collective branded yoghurt and dairy products which are sold Woolworths and independent supermarkets nationally.
However, the new deal means it will now include the exclusive licence to distribute, market and sell those products in Australia and expand the range offered to include those now offered in New Zealand.
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