The Lockyer Valley Fruit & Vegetable Processing Company (Lockyer Valley Foods) says its $50 million Series A funding round will kickstart construction of Australia’s first fruit and vegetable processing facility in 80 years.
Lockyer Valley Foods chair, Murray Chatfield, said the raise is the next step in creating what will be a fully circular facility that will use factory waste and community green waste to power the site via a bio-methane plant.
“This has been in the planning stages for several years and it’s so exciting to finally be ready to break ground,” Chatfield said.
“We will not only deliver one of Australia’s most sophisticated, lowest emissions facilities, we will also secure the future of the fruit and vegetable Industry in Queensland and reduce Australia’s reliance on a variety of imported produce.”
Chatfield told Food & Drink Business, “We grow some of the best products in Australia that the world can produce. We can grow it to a high quality, we can be highly efficient, and incredibly cost competitive, and yet we don’t invest in these sorts of companies. We end up sending our product offshore only to re-import it. It doesn’t make sense.
“Building a whole new company meant we could create a circular economy by putting that at the core of it all- a system where everything is recyclable and able to be reused. It’s good for the environment, the consumer, the workers, the farmers, and the economy.”
The company has already completed pre-seed and seed investment, which funded the purchase of 55h in Withcott, Queensland and covered pre-construction costs including completed design and specifications and pre-feasibility modelling of machinery, equipment, and processing techniques; the DA, electrical and site design; processing; storage, and distribution. The facility will recycle 100 per cent of its water.
LVF has also submitted a $50 million funding application to the National Reconstruction Fund and said its the first new fruit and vegetable processing facility to be build in Australia “for decades”.
Ultimately, the factory will include a steel can production and canning facility; freezing, powdering and juicing capabilities; a pallet manufacturing plant that will recycle plastic waste to make pallets; and a bio-methane plant which will use green waste from the plant, and the surrounding communities, to take the entire facility off-grid.
Chatfield said the project would be built in stages, allowing early revenue streams to be fed back into the business to keep the project progressing.
“We will not only deliver one of Australia’s most sophisticated, lowest emissions facilities, we will also secure the future of the fruit and vegetable Industry in Queensland and into New South Wales, and reduce Australia’s reliance on a variety of imported produce,” he said.
LVF will be working closely with that local farming co-operative, with the facility able to process 120,000 tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables and another 120,000 tonnes of pulses and lentils, all provided by farmers in the local catchment area.
