THE new owners of the former Goodman Fielder starch factory in Tamworth have no plans to cut jobs or downsize the operation, and instead plan to build up the facility.
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Starch Australasia was taken over by the giant American starch producer, Penford Corporation, in September but the new operations manager at the Tamworth plant, Ian Cameron, only started on November 20.
He said while there had been a change of name and management, the starch factory would otherwise run as normal.
Penford Australia Limited – the company’s Australian arm – bought out the country’s only manufacturer of pregelatinised starches and the 229ha farm on the Sydney Rd where the wastewater from the plant is used to irrigate stock feed crops. But Goodman Fielder retained the milling and bakery side of business.
Mr Cameron said there were no plans to cut jobs or downsize the plant, which currently employs 103 people.
Instead, the new parent company will next year install a new $6 million “reactor” to make dextrins, or special sugars and food additives for the Australian food market and for export, creating up to four new full-time positions.
He said the reactor would create a “lot of flow-on work” within the community such as increased maintenance.
Mr Cameron said between the operation in Tamworth and the company’s other starch manufacturing sites in America information and developments could be shared.
“There’s quite a few synergies working there,” he said.
Each year the plant produces 36,000 tonnes of starch, gluten, specialty food additives and materials for the mining and building industries.
Penford Corporation is here for the long haul, according to Mr Cameron, and has no plans to close or downsize the plant in the future as “they see it as being quite strategic for them”.
By US standards Penford is a medium-sized company with an annual turnover of about $160 million.
The acquisition provides Penford with additional high-growth potential, food-grade starch products, expanded market access, as well as a regional platform for manufacturing specialty starches for the fast growing Asian paper industry.
The Fielder business began with flour milling in Tamworth during the gold rush of the 1800s. George Fielder moved to the city in 1867 to manage the new Cohen and Levy mill, before setting up a series of partnerships that eventually saw Fielders diversify into value-adding flour products, farming, feed mills, poultry raising and processing and pork meat production.