Farmer buys into local food processor

Fed up with the state of food manufacturing in Australia, a farmer from New South Wales is setting up a vegetable processing facility of his own.

Beetroot farmer Ed Fagan has bought most of the processing lines from the failed Windsor Farm Foods cannery in Cowra in central New South Wales.

He says he decided to go ahead with the venture after being approached by one of the major supermarkets.

"The first thing is that we have had Woolworths knocking on our door telling us to do it," he said.

"That gives you confidence."

"When you get the buyers and they say, 'if you can do this we'll give you shelf space, because no-one else is doing it'.''

The Windsor Farm Foods cannery went into administration five months ago and was liquidated a few months later.

At the time, Mr Fagan was left with $200,000 worth of beetroot uncontracted.

The failure of the local cannery has eventuated in some unforeseen opportunities for some local farmers.

Mr Fagan says by buying some of the equipment of the old cannery he's more in control of the supply chain.

"We've been growing crops that have been processed for 70 years," he said.

"So for 70 years we've been growing things that have ended up going to someone else who's preserved it or chopped it up or something else and on-sold.

"We believe there is a future in value-adding and we are looking at taking that value-added step."

Source: ABC News, 30 July 2013