Mars Wrigley local boss says infrastructure investment vital to attract skilled workers to the regions

The local boss of confectionery and pet foods giant Mars Wrigley says it is a challenge to entice skilled workers from the cities to the bush, but greater regional infrastructure will help.

The local boss of US confectionery, cooking ingredients and pet foods conglomerate Mars Wrigley says it is vital to attract skilled workers to the regions to grow Australia’s food basket, but this would require investment in regional infrastructure to lure people from capital cities.

Andrew Leakey, general manager for Mars Wrigley, told The Australian’s Global Food Forum it had been a “significant challenge” for the food manufacturer to attract people to the regions where its Australian factories are located.

“I have to say that all of our factories are regional based, whether it’s New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, and it has in the past been a significant challenge to get people into the regional environment.”

Mars Wrigley, still owned by the Mars family, has invested heavily in Australia and late last year the confectionery giant revealed it would spend $25.5m to expand its chocolate factory in Ballarat, regional Victoria, as it responded to rising demand.

 

To have the highly skilled talent pool available to then run its expanded factories that are increasingly relying on state-of-the-art food production technology, Mars Wrigley has worked closely with local institutions and government agencies.

“So we’ve worked very closely with the communities in which we manufacture, our associates learn, work and play in those communities and it’s important that the communities understand what it will take — infrastructure wise — whether it’s working with Victorian government, Ballarat council as an example, to say this is what we are getting in our feedback and our focus groups as we start to attract talent,” Mr Leakey told the forum.

“And then that has shifted significantly from, I want a good solid job and I’m happy to live in Ballarat and I’ll be there for the rest of my life, to the change in technology which is significant.

“It is a highly technological platform that we use and that’s where a lot of the investment has been going to help us to make more at the right cost so that we can obviously make it affordable to everybody.”

Mr Leakey said many federal and state government ministers has visited his factories and they have been actively engaging in the discussion around the right types of infrastructure needed in the regions to support migration, attract and keep skilled workers and support food manufacturing.

“We have had a lot of ministers, a lot of federal and state ministers at all of our sites, getting down into the weeds and rather than looking at it like a bureaucrat, we really want to know what is required, what does the infrastructure look like, what does investment in the right sort of technology look like?

“How do we bring those skills that are lacking or build those skills?

“So I’m never going to go to the government and say, give me $100m of capital to build a new line. It’s not going to happen, nor should I. But I am going to say what is the infrastructure that I want to put around it that will help us to be better at what we do.”