For Karl Ye, the founder of GMP Pharmaceuticals, the opening of the company’s global headquarters yesterday was an emotional experience. The official opening of the Huntingwood site in Sydney’s west marked the 25th anniversary of the company as well as the company’s move into functional foods.
“To see so many of our customers and friends here today makes me quite emotional,” Ye told invitees.
Ye told Food & Drink Business it had been an “interesting journey” since he started the business in 1994. “We now have one thousand employees across Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, one in 10,000 people works at GMP. This is very important for us, to contribute to society,” he said.
The company, which currently specialises in complementary and natural healthcare products, operates four TGA licensed and Medsafe licensed factories in New Zealand and Australia.
The Huntingwood facility is significant for the company on a number of fronts. Its pharmaceutical-grade facilities across Sydney and Auckland occupy more than 120,000 square metres. For Ye: “We have many factories, but we don’t have a headquarters, so it will be nice to have a facility that fulfils that role.”
The company acquired the former Sony DADL Australia site in 2018 via its investment arm, Aunew Investments. It has invested more than $30 million into the development of the 17,200 square metre site. Once fully operational, it will create more than 400 new jobs at the state-of-the-art facility.
The facility will enable GMP Pharmaceuticals to become the first company in Australia to produce and manufacture pharmaceutical grade freeze-dried dairy health and functional food products to be sold in the domestic and export markets.
The site will be developed in two phases and is expected to be completed by late 2020. Stage one has been revamping the offices into the company’s global headquarters. Stage two will open a research institute for product development, a freeze dry factory, and a world-class micro and chemical lab.
“As well as our manufacturing expertise, we have done a lot of research into trends. When you look at what young people want, they don’t want supplements or tablets like their parents or grandparents, so we had to look at different formats they were interested in.
“Huntingwood will be home to our freeze-dried functional foods capabilities. Freeze drying – and pharmaceutical grade freeze drying – is very good at preserving the nutrition and flavours of food. We have very high standards, so everything will be pharmaceutical grade.
“We just received our freeze-drying licence, so we expect to be producing nutritional powders in the next six to twelve months. Within two years we will be very busy,” Ye said.
“The opening of the site in Huntingwood today showcases our commitment to growing GMP in Australia, while helping to support the creation of local jobs, boost the supply chain and grow the local economy.”
In terms of fit-out, Ye says the company philosophy is to find equipment that is fit-for-purpose. “We have so many years of experience, we select machinery from different parts of the world. For our freeze-drying capabilities, we have equipment from Germany and China.
“We have a very smart engineers and then know how to fit it all together and make it work for the best for us.” Ye said.
GMP has the capability to produce a range of products including complementary medicines, dietary supplements, functional foods, nutritional milk powder and certified organic milk powder.
