Page 20 - Food & Drink Business August 2018

MEAT, FISH & POULTRY
Swickers Bacon Factory rises from the ashes
When fire razed parts of the Swickers Kingaroy Bacon factory two years ago, Watpac Specialty Services was contracted to get the Kingaroy operation back up and running quickly, writes Louisa Hearn.
OPPOSITE: Watpac worked with Swickers to get the Kingaroy operation back up and running.
ABOVE: Just after the 2016 fire at Swickers.
WHEN fire tore through the Swickers Kingaroy Bacon Factory in November 2016, its boning room, cold stores, distribution area, and chillers were damaged beyond repair.
SunPork Group is Queensland’s largest pork processor, so transferring production lost from its Swickers facility became its top priority.
The manufacturer was able to establish a temporary offsite boning facility 199km away, relocating 120 staff to meet immediate demand, but was urgently in need of a longer term solution.
A disaster recovery team was quickly assembled and the company approached Watpac to devise a fast-response reconstruction plan.
Continuing the supply of pork products for national and export markets was crucial, and had to be prioritised ahead of the insurance claim process, says SunPork chief executive Robert van Barneveld.
“When you have an event like a fire, you learn very quickly that you have to take control of your own destiny. You can’t just sit there and do nothing because it might not be covered by insurance.”
Watpac’s Specialty Services team was commissioned to begin redesigning a complete replacement build and process layout within days of the fire.
The replacement boning room equipment would form a fundamental part of the rebuild so Watpac and Swickers began immediate discussions with a supplier in Denmark, and a new boning room was designed.
“Watpac had a very difficult task,” says van Barneveld. “The normal process is to go to tender, then submit plans and quotes, and we couldn’t do any of that.
“A number of times we finished building a part of the plant at the same time as plans were signed off, so everything was happening simultaneously rather than sequentially,” he says.
“One of our biggest challenges was to convince insurers to raze the remainder of the damaged facilities and reconstruct from scratch rather than try and
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