The Lockyer Valley Fruit & Vegetable Processing Company has had to remove many obstacles to reach its dream of building new world class fruit and vegetable cannery operation in Australia.
When a major investor pulled out at the end of May last year, it seemed as though the new cannery would stay as a blueprint.
But the grit, guts and gumption of the Lockyer Valler farmers have triumphed.
Plans to establish the new 23,500 sqm cannery at Grantham, between Brisbane and Toowoomba, have moved to detailed financing negotiations, with the final mix of investor equity and bank debt for the A$71 million project expected to be determined by mid-year.
The project was buoyed by a decision made by the Lockyer Valley Regional Council during the week of 9 February to provide guarantor status for up to AU$1 million underwriting of the seed capital requirements and assistance to obtain further State/Federal government input.
The agricultural footprint around the proposed 12 hectare industrial site at Grantham, is rated as the seventh highest yielding crop land in the world – the only such top 10 rating in Australia – as it can produce two crops per year and therefore optimise throughputs on the canning lines by eliminating seasonal downtimes.
Plans for the new cannery include processing vegetables primarily from the Lockyer Valley but also tropical fruits and vegetables from throughout Queensland and even from wider afield.
Chief executive, Colin Dorber, has confirmed that the company was near the end of its financing negotiations to inject upwards of AU$2.5 million of seed capital into the venture in coming days.
"...there is currently strong investor interest in the Australian agribusiness sector, in particular, opportunities to supply the domestic market with differentiated Australian grown consumer products and to develop growing new and high value export markets,” he stated
These additional funds would allow the completion, by the end of June, of already well advanced final feasibility studies for investment decision makers for the cannery.
It will begin production as the only Australian beetroot cannery. Pineapple and tomato runs wil be incorporated on launch with corn added later. The cannery intends to replace the millions of cans of currently imported vegetable and fruit products with domestic.
Lockyer Valley Fruit & Vegetable Processing has now given a senior corporate advisory firm and mainstream banking group the go ahead to progress an Information Memorandum for investors for release at the end of June, and to settle the determination by then of a recommended equity-debt ratio to totally fund the cannery.
The company anticipates an equity raising of around AU$50 million.
