AUSTRALIA'S biggest name in ham, bacon and smallgoods processing, Primo Smallgoods, is getting even bigger with a $200 million expansion of its operations in southern Queensland.
The company, which has enjoys revenue of about $1.4 billion a year, is also poised to for a major ownership shakeup with an Asia-Pacific private equity firm reportedly poised to take a controlling stake in the Sydney-based business.
Primo owns abattoirs and meat processing plants in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, supplying its popular brand's packaged processed pork, beef and chicken products to domestic and overseas markets, plus fresh and processed meats to the Primo Group's 48-strong butcher shop network, Joes Meat Market.
Its South Australian abattoir at Port Wakefield is Australia's most modern pig processing plant, handling more than 10,000 pigs weekly for retail, wholesale and export markets.
The big Queensland expansion at Wacol outside Brisbane is occurring, in part, to satisfy strong smallgoods demand from export markets in South East Asia, plus rising domestic processed meat and sausage consumption in nearby population growth areas in eastern Australia.
The Primo brand was established by Hungarian refugee, Andrew Lederer, who started building his name in the smallgoods game in his Parramatta Road, Sydney, butcher shop in 1957.
That business grew into the Presto Smallgoods empire - Australia's biggest smallgoods business in the 1970s when it was sold to the Petersville food group.
Unable to resist the temptation to get back in the industry, Mr Lederer started afresh with Primo in 1985, buying the Mayfair ham factory at Homebush in Sydney from the Elders IXL conglomerate and taking on 38 staff, including nephew and current managing director, Paul Lederer.
In 1991 the company expanded into Queensland, buying Gold Cob Smallgoods, which formed the basis for Primo's three separate plants now being redeveloped into the largest Australian factory of its kind on a nearby 11-hectare greenfield site.
The new 43,000 square metre facility will almost double production capacity in Queensland and lift efficiency by 30 to 40 per cent, said Primo's State general manager, Greg Lillington.
Mr Lillington also helped develop the company's big Sydney processing plant in Chullora, opened in 1998 after its Homebush factory was acquired by the NSW Government to build Sydney's famous Olympic Park site.
The new Wacol factory will be completed in 12 months, but Primo is already moving product into massive chiller and freezer facilities built this year.
Primo's current Wacol operation sources pork and beef from various Queensland suppliers, its multi-species NSW abattoir at Scone, and northern hemisphere pigmeat exporters to produce about 12,000 tonnes of sliced and processed product in consumer packs and wholesale lines.
Mr Lillington expected the new high-tech plant to churn out about 1600t working single shifts five days a week, but it could quickly grow to two shifts, based on current sales trends.
Early this year Primo's impressive growth record and developing export opportunities provided the company with solid foundations for a planned public listing on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Now, however, industry observers anticipate Hong Kong-based Affinity Equity Partners, which has offices in Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul and Sydney, will buy up to 75pc of the company to run it in partnership with the Lederer family.
Last year, Affinity bought the Tegal frozen chicken products business in New Zealand for $NZ600m.
