Melbourne, Sep. 14 - Heinz Australia announced today that it will be investing over 10 million dollars installing a soup and meals line at its production facility in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.
“With the right investment, it is still possible to competitively manufacture in Australia,” said Peter Widdows, Managing Director Heinz Australia. “We evaluated this investment very thoroughly given the trend in manufacturing to source off shore, and are pleased that our Wagga facility demonstrated its value in this project.”
Peter Jamieson, Operations Manager, Heinz Wagga Wagga said today, “The decision has been made to install the line here in Wagga to reduce product, freight and inventory costs by producing ‘in market’. The installation will take place over the next 6 months and production from Wagga will replace product currently imported from a Heinz plant in Germany.”
The line will cater for the manufacturing of plastic shelf stable soups and meals to support this rapidly growing category in Australia and export to the region. It will eventually generate an additional 26 jobs in the Wagga plant once fully operational.
Production trials on the new line are expected to commence by April 2008, and there are plans for further extensions to the product range over the next 3 years.