The Turbine Collaborative Food & Beverage Manufacturing Precinct on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast has received a further $33.4m from the federal government.
Turbine’s goal is to showcase a new way for food and beverage manufacturing to operate, with an industry-based food and beverage research, education and commercialisation facility within the precinct expected to gain national and international recognition as a blueprint for collaborative manufacturing.
Led by the Food and Agribusiness Network (FAN), has been a work-in-progress for five years to position the Sunshine Coast as a centre to support food and beverage businesses to scale.
The project received $8.78m in November through the federal government’s modern manufacturing grants, and appointed Frances Cayley as project director earlier this month.
Turbine chair Shay Chalmers said, “A critical element of success for the precinct will be the collaboration between project partners who are made up of small, medium and large businesses, research organisations, industry groups, training institutions and investors.
“The project is built around collaboration and will demonstrate what’s possible when you build a culture of co-opetition, where businesses and organisations share a vision and find ways to work together. The advanced manufacturing capability combined with the support of education partners will develop the pipeline of skills within the precinct to set the industry up for future success.”
FAN CEO Emma Greenhatch, who has spearheaded the project since its inception, said the challenges for small food and beverage companies to scale can be immense.
“With such high barriers to growth in our industry, collaboration is key to ensure we have a resilient and competitive food and beverage manufacturing sector into the future.
“The Turbine precinct will house end-to-end infrastructure and support, that will allow start-ups and SMEs to take a great idea through to commercialisation and export – all in the one location.
“Every grower and food and beverage manufacturer from across the Sunshine Coast region and beyond can benefit from this project, from the R&D and education and training facilities to the contract manufacturing, expertise and advanced manufacturing knowledge hub, and hospitality showcase,” Greenhatch said.
The local federal member for Fairfax Ted O’Brien has been a key advocate for the project, Greenhatch said, and has been instrumental in both funding rounds.
“This end-to-end collaborative food and beverage precinct is a world-first, and it will provide lucrative opportunities for businesses at all stages and all sizes to build, scale and export, all under one roof.
“But it’s not just business that will benefit. This project will create lifelong careers for local people. From food technologists to designers and engineers, the TURBINE Precinct will create hundreds of highly skilled careers for locals within an industry where the Sunshine Coast will be among the best in the world,” O’Brien said.
It is expected that the construction phase will create 131 jobs. Once operational more than 680 predominately high-value manufacturing roles and retail trades will be created. Once fully operational, wages generated within the precinct are expected to be anywhere from 12- 60 per cent higher than industry average wages.
The precinct is also expected to boost most industries but the highest uplift in industry value-add will be Manufacturing with approximately $300 million in revenue expected to be generated by Turbine’s Project Partners.
Turbine is due to commence operations in late 2023.
