SPC Australia boss Robert Giles on food production after Covid

SPC Australia boss Robert Giles has learned many lessons from the pandemic, and spoke to The Australian Ag Podcast about the future of domestic food production. LISTEN NOW

If Covid has taught Australians anything it is that it needs to produce and manufacture its own food, the head of one of the nation’s biggest processors says.

Robert Giles, the chief executive of major fruit and vegetable processor SPC Australia – based in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley – said “there is a need for Australia and Australians to better support local manufacturing and processing”.

“Through the Covid pandemic that there was suddenly a realisation that Australia needs to be able to produce its own food,” Mr Giles told The Australian Ag Podcast, out today. “We hear the stats all the time that we could feed our country many times over but we are very heavily weighted into commodities – grains and meat, beef in particular.

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“I think we have lost a lot of our manufacturing ability. We need to better support it.”

SPC hit the headlines in August when it became the first Australian company outside of healthcare to mandate vaccinations against Covid for its staff and visitors. The move was considered controversial at the time and prompted a backlash from the anti-vax movement who threatened to boycott its products.

“A lot of the feedback we got – putting the anti vaxxers aside – was really supportive both from a business (point of view) and from our staff in general,” Mr Giles said.

“Our sales went up, which was a good outcome. There is a move towards Australian produce anyway so we were seeing positive impacts in our sales but it continued, and if anything over that period we were getting plus-20 per cent sales growth in our retail brand and domestic business.”

Mr Giles said the decision did not have any impact on the company’s ability to be able to attract staff in an otherwise tough labour market. He said SPC was in the fortunate position, with the brand having “so much heritage” that turnover was very low.

Currently, SPC is recruiting for its busy summer harvest and production period and of the “400-500 jobs available I think we’ve got 2000 applicants”. “We seem to be able to attract the people we need and they don’t seem to be affected by the mandate. It is not unusual that we get oversubscribed for our seasonal roles.”