Page 26 - Food&Drink Business Magazine June 2019

PLANT DESIGN & FITOUT
Made for growth
A close partnership with unfailing attention to detail and a “do it right” attitude has delivered a world-class facility for beverage manufacturer Made Group. By Kim Berry.
MAIN: The facility’s design made sure there was a lot of space for activities.
ABOVE: Co-founders Luke Marget (left) and Matt Dennis.
ABOVE RIGHT: Made Group has grown from one to five beverage brands since it began in 2005.
RIGHT: Vaughan Constructions designed and built Made its very own Melbourne Cricket Ground size facility.
WHEN Made Group approached industrial building experts Vaughan Constructions, they had no plans, just a list of must-haves. It has since settled in to its purpose built 15,000 square metre facility on Melbourne’s outskirts.
Made co-founder and marketing manager Luke Marget told Food & Drink Business that in 2016, he and business partner and co- founder Matt Dennis realised they needed to start planning for a bigger facility.
Made entered the beverage market in 2005 with Australia’s first enhanced water – NutrientWater. It now has five dedicated brands as well as a small contract manufacturing capacity (see box).
“In 2016 we expanded into pot yoghurt, so needed a whole new production line. We ended up with lots of lovely equipment, but nowhere to store anything. We were being constrained on space and output. Export was starting to come into the mix
as well,” Marget says.
Matt and Luke made the
decision they wanted to stay in the area because it was close
to where a lot of their team lived and had good freeway access. “Over a 12 month period we started looking. We wanted full customisation, so started talking to developers who had land in the area as well, which was all pretty tightly held. Our CBRE agent introduced us to Vaughan.”
Happy with the location, Marget told F&DB they were impressed by Vaughan’s experience building food manufacturing facilities. That Vaughan had worked with “much bigger businesses than us” was also a positive, he says.
“We had lots of aspects that needed to be customised so worked closely with them from the outset. The design phase was critical to us. We were very clear on what features and layout we wanted and to take in some of the learnings we had from our first factory.
“Vaughan’s engineers brought a wealth of knowledge to the table, right down to the micro level,” Marget says.
The new 15,000 square metre facility includes a 14,000 square metre warehouse and manufacturing space. There is
26 | Food&Drink business | June 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au