Mid-Market business award for Longwarry Food Park
Media release
Longwarry Food Park has been named BRW’s best mid-market business in regional Australia. The prestigious, inaugural Mid Market Awards,which are sponsored by GE Capital and form part of BRW’s annual Momentum series, focused on businesses between $10 million and $250 million.
While not generally acknowledged, mid-market businesses make up 1.4 per cent of all Australian commerce contributing $425 billion annually to the economy and providing one in four full-time jobs.
Longwarry Food Park was established in 2005 by its managing director Mr Rakesh Aggarwal to produce and export milk powder. Since its inception, the company has proved it is adaptable and resilient through various challenges, the most devastating being a factory fire in February 2012 when the plant was closed for seven weeks. After losing 20 million litres of milk supply and being left with a damage bill of $5 million, the company has fully recovered and is again experiencing 30 per cent annual growth, which Mr Aggarwal believes will continue for the next three years.
Part of the company’s strength is the diversification of their product range that now includes the manufacture of full cream milk powder, fresh milk, UHT milk and cream cheese. This year each product has received a quality award from the Victorian Division and National Division of the Dairy Association of Australia.
The company’s production, previously 95 per cent export, is now 75 per cent export to 30 countries and 25 per cent domestic business.
Saurabh Aggarwal, who is general manager of the company, said the award meant recognition of the recovery Longwarry has made since the fire.“It was a very challenging seven weeks for our staff and our suppliers due to such a substantial hit to the company’s main product line being the full cream milk powder and the spray drier. No one really knew whether the business would survive, so it’s testament to the huge effort by all our employees to get the business back up and running and contributing to its ongoing success.”
Mr Rakesh said their plans going forward are well poised to take care of any challenges that come their way with the diversification into the domestic market, new overseas markets and new products. This is substantiated by the company’s capability to stay competitive in milk price and its continuous growth.
See also:
Longwarry Food Park Media Release 1
Longwarry Food Park Media Release 3
