Wiley, OneHarvest join forces for super-size fresh salad facility

The fresh salad produced by the facility will be sold under eastern seaboard supermarkets' own private label brands.
The fresh salad produced by the facility will be sold under eastern seaboard supermarkets' own private label brands.

Australia's growing appetite for healthy, convenient, pre-packaged salads is seeing the construction of the largest fresh cut salad facility of its kind in NSW.

The construction is thanks to a new deal between pioneer of value-added vegetable products, OneHarvest, and food manufacturing facility specialist, Wiley.

Based on OneHarvest's brief, Wiley created an early concept design for the multi-million dollar project, located in Smeaton Grange, Camden, and managed the design and development application approvals.

The facility will supply supermarkets on the eastern seaboard with a wide variety of salad products made from leafy ingredients including spinach, lettuce, rocket, kale, and many other vegetables in stand-alone products, as well as mixes and salad kits.

The majority of these products will be sold under the supermarkets' own private labels.

"We are pleased to contract Wiley to design and construct our new facility, which will service the expanding fresh cut salad market," OneHarvest Managing Director Sam Robson said.

A strong history

Robson said: "Wiley has a long and successful relationship with our family business and has continued to work in partnership with us through our growth and national expansion projects over the last 20 years.

"Their unique expertise and track record of assisting us in delivering projects in Queensland and Victoria drove our decision to engage their services again for the design and construction of our first facility in New South Wales.

"This project will enable OneHarvest to service the largest market for pre-packaged salads in the country with fresher product, owing to the facility being closer to the freeway network and our retail customers' points of distribution.

"Consumers will benefit from being able to purchase fresher, higher quality product that lasts longer once they take it home.

"OneHarvest will also be able to meet its growing need for increased capacity, particularly in the peak summer trading period."

Wiley Managing Director Tom Wiley said his company had a strong history with OneHarvest and was excited to be involved in the design and construction of its first facility in New South Wales – especially one of such size and scale.

"We began our journey with OneHarvest over a decade ago, working together to help them create their world-class processing facility at Wacol," Wiley said.

"We helped them expand this plant in 2012 to improve capacity and cater for their ongoing growth, and are now pleased to add the new Sydney facility to the list of important projects on which we have collaborated."

With early works including earthworks, civil works, and drainage now underway on site this project is planned for completion by October 2015.

Previous projects Wiley has supported in NSW:

  • Beak & Johnston – site and project management of soup line installation
  • Zammit Smallgoods stage one – fit-out of greenfield cold storage facility
  • Deb Australia – designed fit-out to turn basic warehouse to fit-for-purpose, highly automated manufacturing facility
  • Baiada Poultry – world-class upgrade to its Pendle Hill facility
  • Gundagai Meat Processors – innovated efficient new boning room
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