Mooroopna fruit going worldwide

By Daneka Hill

Feb 11, 2022

Bobbing apples: A gentle current in the water sends fruit down to the sorting area. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

Mooroopna is now home to the biggest fruit packaging facility in the Southern Hemisphere.

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For two years Geoffrey Thompson Holdings has been busily transforming the old SPC cannery site behind the Woolworths-Aldi car park in Mooroopna into a state-of-the-art facility.

The new fruit packaging area is fully automated and will focus on exporting fruit internationally.

FDC Construction and Fitout was responsible for creating the facility.

FDC general manager Cameron Jackson said the site was a “dark warehouse”, so-called for the lack of constant lighting.

Steel workers: These bins run on a monorail that stretches across the entire building. The concrete floor is also brand new. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

“The machinery doesn’t need to see, so the lights don’t need to be turned on and this ends up saving a lot of electricity,” Mr Jackson said.

“The area is atmosphere controlled, so it’s not just a fridge, it will sit at two degrees and 16 per cent oxygen, which means a fire can’t start inside.”

Normal air contains 21 per cent oxygen.

Builders: FDC site manager Kyran Hughan and FDC general manager Cameron Jackson. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

Geoffrey Thompson, who owns the family company, said the packing facility would initially focus on apples and pears, but had the ability to pack stone fruit as well.

“This will probably halve our labour cost and really make us competitive,” Mr Thompson said.

“Fruit packed here will go all over the world.”

Up and away: Located behind the autonomous packing area is this “high bay” warehouse. High bays are a storage solution used by big manufacturers with too many pallets and not enough floor space. The site also contains four aisle cranes, which are necessary to load up a tall space like this. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

Geoffrey Thompson chairman Rob Bryant said while the labour costs were halving, the workforce was actually increasing by 44 full-time jobs and employees were being up-skilled to take on IT, mechanical and defect control roles.

“This tech takes the cost of packing from 65 cents per kilogram to 36 cents per kilogram,” Mr Bryant said.

“This is the key drive to making us internationally competitive. At the moment this region can’t afford to grow fruit.”

Mr Bryant said while some people would focus on the loss of menial-task jobs, ultimately the cost-effective packing facility would help farmers stay profitable and increase jobs in local horticulture.

Royal visit: Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Victoria Danielle Green toured the site on February 7. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

Fruit is now sorted by cameras, which take 200 to 300 pictures per fruit, looking for blemishes, bruises and even looking at bruising underneath the skin and hidden from the human eye.

After travelling through a water wash they are rotated, so the most appealing side is facing up before going into boxes.

The Victorian Government committed $1.5 million to the $58 million factory, while the Federal Government committed $15 million.

Mr Bryant said without the government funds the facility could not have been built.