Page 12 - Food&Drink magazine Feb-Mar 2023

REGIONAL FOCUS
The regional push
There are few agencies, government or otherwise, that do not acknowledge the importance of regional manufacturing in Australia. Kim Berry looks at the state of food and beverage manufacturing beyond the city fringe.
with federal funding – rather than each tier of government choosing different priorities,” she says.
Simson says the federal Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program takes the place-based model advocated by NFF, but needs “significantly more investment to be transformational”.
Andrew Leakey is the managing director of Mars Wrigley, part of the Mars company, and based in Ballarat, Victoria. He is a passionate advocate for regional business.
He says the idea of precincts like the NFF proposal or hubs like the pilot Central Coast project and Turbine precinct under construction on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, can reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and reduce impact on the environment.
“There’s a huge amount of people that are working in those areas that are working in isolation. If we can bring them together and make sure the infrastructure is there to support it, then absolutely. It’s getting harder for individuals to stand alone, so looking at how you can level the playing field on non-competitive costs makes sense,” Leakey says.
The chair of Bega, Barry Irvin, grew up in the Bega Valley on the New South Wales South Coast and his family history there goes back more than
100 years. He returned to the town and to Bega in the early 1990s, becoming chair in 2000.
Irvin says collaboration comes naturally for regional businesses, citing Bega’s involvment in a 10-year project to accelerate circularity in the Bega Valley Shire as an example.
Irvin says, “I tend to talk a lot about the fact that we are really happy to be collaborative and I have always thought big brothers and big sisters were important as you’re trying to grow. Having the attitude that knowledge comes from everywhere is always something we’ve carried in our culture.
“But I really observe it when we try and initiate something like the circularity project, because we’re happy to share our knowledge and even happier to share our resources. You see,
WHEN the current federal government assumed power, it countered the coalition’s Modern Manufacturing Strategy with a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund (NRF), the Regional Precincts and Partnerships and $135.5 million Supporting Australian Industry programs, all with the goal to stimulate local industry and regional economic growth.
In his article for Food & Drink Business late last year, federal industry minister Ed Husic said, “The Albanese Government fully understands the value of the food and beverage sector, its importance to regional communities and the challenges it is facing. We want to work closely with the sector to ensure it meets its challenges, remains healthy and continues to grow.”
And it didn’t waste time, announcing more than $30 million for three food
manufacturing projects in regional areas in its first budget, including $17.1 million for a pilot Food Manufacturing Innovation Hub on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
Figures provided by the federal department of Industry, Science, and Resources show Australia’s food and beverage manufacturing sector employs around 233,000 people, making it the largest manufacturing employer, representing
27 per cent of all manufacturing jobs. It contributed roughly
$29 billion to the FY22 economy.
Regional areas account for 40.2 per cent of the sector’s output. Small and medium-sized enterprises dominate the sector, with 99 per cent of businesses employing less than 200 people.
But grants and words only go so far in making a regional centre more viable that the outskirts of a capital city.
REGIONAL PRECINCT PUSH
In March last year, the NFF launched its $1.4 billion Regional Development Precincts project. The proposal identified 20 regional centres suitable for plans to encourage more businesses to relocate from metropolitan centres.
NFF president Fiona Simson said it wasn’t about turning regional towns into metropolitan city replicas.
“The goal is for Australians and Australian business to be no more than 90 minutes from the services they need to thrive personally and financially, and that businesses have access to infrastructure that can get people and goods around the country and around the world,” she says.
“The Special Activation Precincts program in New South Wales is a great example of this. The challenge is connecting state programs up
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