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.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
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.