A MULTI-MILLION dollar initiative coming out of Blayney will mean thousands of hampers are delivered across Australia this Christmas.
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In a deal struck between Blayney Foods and the Hamper King organisation, packing is now underway ahead of the festive season.
It’s a good news story for the small community at Blayney with an extra 150-200 staff being employed for the three month frenzy of activity.
Better still, a long-term contract has been signed, the three year deal with Hamper King having a further three year option.
Sydney-based Hamper King general manager David White said yesterday that Blayney Wholesale Foods is a member of the Countrywide Food Service Group which they work with doing Hamper King deliveries to its customers’ front door.
“We approached George Tanos at Blayney because we are always in need of packing facilities and help with logistics around this busy time of year,” he said. “We bring in all the products for the hampers to be packed and then have to get them out to the people.
“One of the challenges we face in all capital cities is the availability of freezer space. Anyone who has spare capacity closes them down to run a dry store because electricity is so expensive.
“George’s facility was ideal for us because there was room to accommodate the number of hampers in stock which need to be held.”
Mr White said they anticipate 40,000 cartons will be packed over a 12 week period at Blayney Foods.
“We moved our operations from not even looking at metro areas in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to all being relocated to Blayney,” he said.
“A plus was that over the years George has invested in his ability to pack hampers and has a production line for this type of operation already set up.
“Another important ability was his ability to get the staffing levels that we need. At any one time on the production line there may be 30 to 50 people, each one placing a product into a hamper.
“This means local jobs for Blayney because there’s only about two people from Hamper King on site, mainly monitoring things like quality control.
“In terms of business throughout, there’s millions of dollars worth of product involved. Everywhere we looked, there were synergies between the two companies where we both benefitted.”