Lockyer Valley Foods: $400m cannery, processing facility to buy $45m of Darling Downs fruit, vegetables once open

Work could start within months on a “game-changing” cannery and processing facility just outside Toowoomba, with the CEO promising to buy $45m in local produce in its first year of operation.

The team behind an ambitious $400m fruit and vegetable cannery and processing plant just outside Toowoomba says it will buy $45m worth of local produce in its first year of opening.

Lockyer Valley Fruit and Vegetable Processing Company, trading as Lockyer Valley Foods, will break ground within months at its proposed site in Withcott after securing enough seed funding from regular Queenslanders to buy the land.

The facility, which will employ more than 500 workers once operational, would annually turn 700,000 tonnes tomatoes, potatoes, beetroot, broccoli, berries and other fruits, vegetables and fungi sourced from the Darling Downs into supermarket products.

AUSTRALIA FIRST: Standing on the site of an upcoming $80m fresh produce processing facility at Withcott are (from left) Lockyer Fruit and Vegetable Ltd Cooperative managing director Cheryl Bromage, Lockyer Valley Fruit and Vegetable Food Processing Company CEO Colin Dorber, retired farmer and company investor Ivan Peters and co-operative director Marie King.

The multistage factory will snap-freeze vegetables and create powders, juices and canned goods.

After securing $4m in funds through a separate co-operative, company CEO Colin Dorber said he was in the process of formally buying the 54-hectare parcel with a view of starting earthworks as early as January.

“It allows us to buy it for $5.6m, so we’re happy about that and it finally gives us a clear strong balance sheet,” he said.

Plans for a $180m fruit and vegetable processing facility at Withcott, outside Toowoomba.

“The operational works have gone through and been signed off by council.

“We’ve gone to tender, we have a successful tenderer so the digging will start early next year.

“I’ve raised nearly $4m from normal everyday people who want to be part of this project.”

Mr Dorber said he wanted to be up and running in two years.

“We would hope by mid-January we’ll be on the site, moving the soil and we’d hope for the approvals for the three stages to be done (by council) later this year,” he said.

“We want to be operational and selling in early 2026, which means we’ve got 18 months to move things forward.”

Lockyer Valley Fruit and Vegetable Processing Company Limited project founder Colin Dorber with the development approval from the council.

The update comes just days after Lockyer Valley farmers lost millions in crops due to a freak hailstorm at the weekend.

The shock weather wiped out half of Australia’s broccolini stocks and impacted the supply of eschalots, pumpkins, spring onions, broccoli and green beans.

Lockyer Valley Foods was also impacted, with the company lost an entire field that was being used as a proof of concept for its new healthy soil rejuvenator product.

Mr Dorber noted the processing facility could buy destroyed crops from farmers to fuel its methane production, as well as become the basis of its soil rejuvenator.

Concept art of the $180m fruit and vegetable processing facility at Withcott.

“If a farm suffered major storm damage and the crop was reduced to green waste, we could still buy that to feed our methane facility,” he said.

Mr Dorber said the entire project was based around maximising the value generated from every crop grown on the Darling Downs, pointing to the amount of fresh produce rejected by supermarkets.

“At the moment, the farmers can’t sell anything less than their best-grade product, so the key is to value-add the industry,” he said.

“We all know Coles and Woolworths want the best of the best and they control that market but what we have to do is provide a market for everything else.

“In our first full year of operation, we’ll have to buy $45m worth of fruit and vegetables. “They can still sell the best of the best (to the big chains) and that’s what makes it a game-changer — (they were) getting rid of the rest, but now they can sell that.”

The Queensland government this week revealed farmers impacted by the recent freak weather could apply for financial assistance.

Producers should contact the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries on 13 25 23 to request an Individual Disaster Stricken Property (IDSP) declaration.