A NEW multi-million dollar freezing and packaging facility is an international vote of confidence for Wingham Beef Exports, according to those who attended the official opening.
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The new facility, which cost about $18 million to construct and has been operational for about a month, will see meat products frozen on site at Wingham.
The new system will slash the company's annual $2 million expenditure on transport to a freezing facility at Macksville.
Federal member for Lyne Dr David Gillespie, State member for Myall Lakes Stephen Bromhead, and Greater Taree City mayor Paul Hogan attended the opening, which included a tour of the new plant.
They were joined by members from the Wingham Beef Exports' parent company, NH Foods Australia, Takeo Kudo, Andrew Triance and Kanji Bando.
General manager of Wingham Beef Exports, Grant Coleman, said that the new system would increase productivity as well as increasing the skillset of the company's 360 employees.
"It takes a lot of the manual handling out and means we're upskilling the employees to use the technology running in the facility," he said.
Dr Gillespie said the investment in the export was a sign of the success of Australia's federal trade deals with Japan, Korea, China and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
Mr Bromhead called the development "a vote of confidence in the Manning Valley, a vote of confidence in the beef industry" and a "boost for the biggest private employer in the Manning Valley."
Also in attendance were the Ireland family, whose patriarch Peter Ireland, now 92, owned the export for several years in the 1980s.
The family, based in Walcha, maintains close ties to the export as one of their biggest suppliers of livestock.
lachlan.leeming@fairfaxmedia.com.au