Australian Potato grower hopes Penola closing will bring efficiencies to the potato industry

Last week, McCain Foods announced the closure of its Penola processing plant. Starting mid-December, all potatoes produced locally for McCain will be processed at Ballarat in Victoria.

Farmer Terry Buckley says he is sad to see the local Penola plant close, but he hopes the Ballarat plant might save the Australian potato processing industry, which is being outpriced by cheaper imports.

"We just don't seem to be able to hack the pace at this point in time, so in reality, when we had two factories running at half speed, the economics of them is going to be rather poor,"he said.

"If you are under that much import pressure, you may be better off with one factory running very well."