ABOUT 180 people attended the celebration to mark the completion of Almondco's $36.6 million expansion and upgrade in the Riverland in early February.
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Completion of the Renmark expansion was across four projects since 2019.
It includes a 10,000 square metre warehouse and upgrades to the processing plant to handle an increasing volume of almonds coming in each year.
Work began with the help of a state government loan of $28.5m in 2019, with a further $8.1m loan provided in February 2022.
Almondco managing director Brenton Woolston said the celebration was organised to thank stakeholders, growers, and the local community for their support and involvement.
"It is great to have everything finished and working the way we expected it would," Mr Woolston said.
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"Major capital investment and facility upgrades do take quite a bit of planning to ensure the increase in production from our Almondco member growers can be processed and can get to market in a cost and time efficient manner.
"We had a record intake in 2022, a lift of 25 per cent on the previous year and we are expecting another 20pc increase in tonnage again this season."
Mr Woolston said Almondco's processing capacity had been significantly increased through the works.
"A lot of the thinking has been around how we do become more efficient and handle more capacity through our entire supply chain," he said.
"We can get more value-added products out in an hour now than we used to pack in one shift."
Value adding
THE key to maximising the use of the whole almond is by value adding different qualities and components, and this in turn maximises the returns to Riverland growers.
The original plant on the Sturt Highway will be for all natural skin-on products while the new facility will be for anything with the almond skin removed.
"The blanching wastewater that helps remove the almond skin now goes through a dedicated site wastewater treatment plant and is now being used on the grounds at Almondco," Mr Woolston said.
"We are trying to optimise the value of the almond product and we are endeavouring to maximise the use of the whole almond by value adding."
Mr Woolston also paid tribute to local contractors who had to work through the COVID years, as the original project began right at the beginning of COVID in March 2020.
"We couldn't get overseas technicians in to help us install equipment so we had to innovate and use VR (virtual reality) technology to make sure everything was correctly connected," Mr Woolston said.
- Article courtesy Australian Nutgrower.
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