About 120 jobs will be created in Altona by Irish multinational the Kerry Group after a financial boost from the state government for a “centre of excellence” for bakery products.
Last year, a different division of the Kerry Group closed down in Altona with most of the 105 jobs lost heading to Malaysia.
Deputy Premier Peter Ryan last week announced the Office of State Development had attracted the Kerry Group to Victoria.
“The development of this new, $13.7 million bakery operation will feature state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and investment in research and development,” Mr Ryan said.
“This illustrates Victoria’s attractiveness to global food processing companies and will allow the company to look to export products into growing Asian markets.”
Kerry’s Australian spokesman Keven Doyle said the government had been very forthcoming with financial help, but he would not reveal how much the company had received.
“They assisted us in some technology development, in some innovation areas that we were looking for to assist us,” he said.
“We’re in the process of relocating machinery at the moment. There are full-time employees currently transferring over from our Heidelberg, Northern Road, operation.
“We have a new piece of machinery arriving for pastry manufacturing and there will be 100 or 120 jobs during that period to work on those lines, and new lines that will be installed later on in early 2016.
“It is keeping manufacturing here in Australia,” Mr Doyle said.
He said the Kerry Group business in Altona that closed last year was a separate division.
Altona MP Jill Hennessy said that while she supported every single local job, the government had questions to answer about its assistance.
“Did the government assist the company to remain operating and to protect jobs before it was forced to close its doors just last year,” she said.
“If so, to what extent? How many of these new jobs have been secured by workers made redundant following the company’s closure just last year?
“How much did the government invest to enable the company to re-establish and reopen their doors just a year after it closed them?”
Mr Ryan’s spokesman did not respond by deadline.
