MULTIVAC is expanding its sales and logistics capacity in Queensland with a newly leased building complex just two kilometres from the previous location and close to the M1 motorway, which connects the Gold Coast to Brisbane.

The company said with Australia being one of its most rapidly growing markets for packaging machines and materials in the Asia Pacific region, the premises will cater to the constantly rising demand in this lucrative region.

It said this will result in greater market penetration, faster reaction times to the changing needs in the packaging sector, and rapid supplies to customers on the ground.

MULTIVAC has been represented for 14 years in the country, and it has its headquarters in Melbourne as well as subsidiaries in Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales.

The subsidiary in Queensland recently however reached the limits of its capacity for the fourth time.

The newly leased building complex, the Yatala Building, is ideally situated, according to its Australian managing director Andrew Hutchison.

“Here we are in the heartland of Australian cattle farming and beef processing. That means for us a quick route to our most important customers,” he said.

To remain flexible and have the new premises available as quickly as possible, the decision was made to lease a building rather than to build completely new.

Providing an area of 1,200 m², the new location offers three times as much space as the previous complex, with its storage capacity increased from 93 to 520 pallet places – space enough not only to store spare parts for packaging machines and other line modules, but also to stock a wide variety of films and other packaging materials.

“A real benefit for us, since we can now offer our customers a complete selection of materials and also provide comprehensive advice on pack design,” Hutchison said.

“We service a huge area with a total length of around 2,000 km. In addition to this, we also serve customers in the Northern Territory, a fairly sparsely populated region of the country. But it doesn’t matter, where our machines are installed and used, all our customers can rely at all times on our professional service and delivery reliability.”

And the growing requirement for sustainable packaging solutions in the Australian market also must be met.

MULTIVAC group president Christian Traumann said, “The target set by the Australian Government means that by 2025 one hundred per cent of all packs in the country must be reusable, compostable or recyclable.

“In addition to this, the increasing awareness by consumers of material-efficient and recyclable packaging concepts, as well as the demand for solutions from renewable resources such as cardboard and other paper fibre-based materials, are fuelling growth on the continent enormously.”

Hutchison added that he sees another growth market in the area of sausage processing, since there are many small butcher’s businesses in the coastal region of Queensland, which process 500 kilos of sausages or more per week.

“Here we are well able to serve the demand in the market for efficient and cost-effective automation solutions – especially for example with our sausage centrifuge and other handling modules for these products,” he said.

“And last but not least, there is also further potential in the chamber machine sector for packing fresh meat and convenience products such as meat balls or burgers.”