May 4, 2017
Kingaroy is looking forward to an economic boost in the near future when 140 Swickers workers return from Wulkuraka and begin working at the Kingaroy Bacon Factory again.
SunPork CEO Robert van Barneveld and General Manager Linchon Hawks, who will be guest speakers at the Kingaroy Chamber Of Commerce And Industry’s (KCCI) next Meet’n’Greet on Monday night, are expected to announce when they expect full operations will resume at the plant.
An electrical fire which broke out at the factory on November 6 last year destroyed the company’s boning room, chillers and export distribution centre.
The boning room workers were relocated within days to another facility at Wulkuraka, near Ipswich, and a temporary accommodation village was built nearby for them to live in during weekdays.
Since then, Swickers have built a temporary boning room at the Kingaroy complex as an extension to the existing wholesale chiller building.
The company has also built a new, permanent freezer and chilling building to work in conjunction with the temporary boning room.
A permanent boning room building is expected to be completed by the end of May, at which time the factory will effectively be back to normal.
The KCCI believe the absence of the 140 workers from Kingaroy each week has had an economic impact on the town, but this should reverse quickly once the Swickers workers are living in the region full time again.
The next KCCI Meet’n’Greet will be held at Mortimer and Co’s building at 6 Mary Street, and will get underway at 5:15pm.
Apart from Swickers, the meeting will hear presentations from Cos, Dominique and David Schuh from the Schuh Group, who purchased Mortimer and Co. two years ago; and South Burnett Mayor Keith Campbell.
The meeting is open to anyone – whether they’re KCCI members or not – but a $10 meeting fee applies to cover the cost of refreshments.
