THE company behind a new $27.5 million almond processing plant has ambitious plans to have it up and running in time for next year’s crop.
Australian Farming Services (AFS) Chief Executive Officer David Armstrong said the new facility, to be built north east of Murray Downs, was needed because the almond industry had expanded so quickly in the past five to 10 years it had outgrown existing processing capacity
He said the aim was to have it ready to receive next year’s almond crop from the company’s maturing orchards between Tooleybuc and Balranald.
“We came in as farmers,” he said.
“We’ve developed a number of orchards in that area, and the existing processors just don’t have the capacity. So that’s why we are building our own processing plant, which in the first instance will largely cater for our own production.”
Mr Armstrong said AFS had an option it was about to exercise to buy the 31ha site on Swan Hill Road, which is part of the property known as ‘Marill’, owned by the Martin family.
The construction timeline depended on approvals by Murray River Council, but the equipment had been ordered – much of it from the United States – and they hoped to start earthworks next month, with building to follow in March.
“We’ve got nuts to process next year,” he said.
“And right now as I stand, I don’t have a home for them, which makes me sleepless at night.
“We’ve got a plan and we have good relationships with the existing processors. They’ve been really good to us and I don’t think they would leave us stranded. But first prize is for us to get our approvals. And our plan is to build our processing plant through this year, and be ready to go for next year’s harvest.”
Under the proposal, which was advertised this week for public comment, the plant would operate for 24 hours a day, seven days a week for up to 12 weeks of the year.
It would have the capacity to process up to 30,000 tonnes of almonds, employing about 7.5 permanent staff and more than 60 casuals during peak periods.
A 15 megalitre stormwater detention dam will collect water for dust suppression and fire protection.
The existing driveway entrance will be upgraded to allow B-triple trucks to simultaneously enter and exit the site.
B-triple trucks would move whole nuts from the orchards to the plant, where they will be dried, hulled and shelled, before the kernels are packaged into one tonne and 850kg bulk bags, and 50lb (22.6kg) poly bags and cartons.
B-double trucks will transport the finished product to ports at Melbourne or Adelaide, or to Swan Hill for loading onto freight trains to Melbourne.
Hulls and shells will be stockpiled for later sale as stockfeed.
AFS manages 4500ha of almond orchards in NSW and north west Victoria, making it Australia’s third biggest producer, behind Select Harvests and Olam.
It”s building a 5ha 5.2 gigawatt solar farm on the Cadell Orchard near Balranald to replace diesel generators currently being used to irrigate the orchards, reducing both costs and carbon emissions.
“It makes sense to run the plant as a solar farm and we think it’ll work well,” Mr Armstrong said.
“We’ve signed an agreement with AGL Energy and they will start building that this year. We hope to be live by October this year and we’re busy doing studies for our other orchards to possibly do the same.”
The mammoth Sunraysia and Limondale solar farms are joined to the electricity grid south of the Cadell Orchard.
The development application and plans for the processing plant can be viewed on the council’s website or the NSW Planning Portal.
The deadline for written submissions through the planning portal is February 10.
