Lenswood’s juicy plans on track

Work is underway to allow the Lenswood Cold Store Co-operative Society Limited to diversify and expand its capacity, which will also result in the creation of at least 50 ongoing jobs in the new and improved facilities.

Established in 1933, Lenswood Co-op chief executive officer James Walters said the entity was a "traditional co-op", capable of storing about 14,000 tonnes.

"What Lenswood does is help to bring all the smaller guys together so you've got one unified brand," he said.

"Because of our packing equipment, what we are able to do is make sure there is a standardised, consistent product coming out of here.

"We're always abreast of making sure the brand is held in high regard."

Lenswood Co-op supplies Coles and Woolworths domestically, and Tesco in the United Kingdom market.

It is also one of the largest exporters of Pink Lady apples in Australia.

"We may only be 10 per cent of the national crop, but we're one of the largest exporters of Pink Lady out of the country," Mr Walters said.

The Co-op's $850,000 Regional Development Fund grant has already been put to use, with work underway to redevelop and expand the facility's aging building.

"Parts of it are 80 years old, so some of the building needs redevelopment," Mr Walters said.

"The grant is making it possible to redevelop the building and make greater use of our site.

"We're flattening the top of the hill where we're going to put a new storage yard so we can extend the sheds; we're going to go to 26,000t of fruit over the next two years.

"For us to handle that extra capacity, the grant's going to make it possible for us to change the building so it becomes more practical and easier as an operational unit to use."

The improvements have already created 24 positions, with the construction work continuing until June 2016.

"Overall, once we get all the new packing lines in and so on, between now and 2020, 50 new positions will be created," he said.

"That's not just packing positions, it's commercial managers, technical advisers, the whole lot, because we're also going to launch our new varieties (MiApple, Rockit and Red Love) commercially in the next two to three years as well.

"We've got other varieties we're testing, and some are showing some very interesting signs and look quite promising as well."

Mr Walters said the new trademark varieties held by Next Fruit Generation Australia would require state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities to produce new local offerings which would cater for the national and international premium markets.

"The state government funding is supporting our vision to enhance value to South Australian apple and pear producers," he said.

"We want to have the niche varieties that we can target niche markets with and, hopefully, achieve a premium price on, in the next five years."