Almost 60 jobs will be impacted by iconic King Island Dairy closure

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Tasmania's peak farming body says the planned closure of the King Island Dairy and its associated cheese brand is 'heartbreaking' for farmers. There are fears the decision will have a significant social and economic impact on the island.

Transcript

00:00Yes, I'm here outside this 100-year-old dairy facility on King Island.

00:07We've flown in this morning.

00:09This is the only milk processor left on the island.

00:13It employs about 58 people directly, but many more down the supply chain.

00:18We're talking packers, wrappers, truck drivers, farmers who supply the milk to the factory.

00:26All that staff amounts to about 6% of the island's population.

00:31What we've heard from this factory, from locals, is that without this factory, many of these

00:37people would have to leave.

00:39There's no other jobs here for them, particularly the skilled workers on King Island.

00:44They take their families with them, ripping them out of the community, taking their business

00:49with them as well.

00:50Dairy giant Saputo made this announcement yesterday.

00:54We heard that in about nine months, this facility and the iconic cheeses that come from it would

01:00be no more.

01:02We understand those workers were given some notice, but the farmers were not.

01:08We've tried to speak to workers this morning, but they've been told not to speak to the

01:11media by Saputo, their parent company.

01:15We've also heard from farmers that transitioning from their farms, from a dairy operation to

01:21a beef operation or closing them down is a multi-year process, but they've been given

01:26nine months to make a decision on their livelihood.

01:30This comes on the back of a really tough year for farming on the island.

01:34We've got record droughts.

01:36It doesn't look like it at the moment, but it's been extremely dry.

01:41Farmers in debt trying to feed their animals, and now this news for them.

01:45On the cheese side, Saputo, which is a multi-billion dollar company headquartered in Canada, says

01:52that this brand just wasn't competitive in the market anymore.

01:57In other Tasmanian brands you might be familiar with, Mersey Valley or The Heritage, they

02:01say they're doing really well, but this brand is not keeping up.

02:06It speaks perhaps to the ballooning cost of manufacturing in Australia, where even the

02:11slightest extra cost, such as shipping over the Bass Strait, can be really unappealing

02:17to a large multinational corporation.

02:20In the dairy space already, Australia doesn't produce enough milk for itself, so this could

02:26open the door for even more imports.

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