BWEZ: Luv-A-Duck's big plans as construction resumes

Luv-A-Duck, a Nhill-based company, began construction on its $20 million value-add facility before the pandemic set in, and was forced to suspend building for months as the market for its wholesale and retail duck products collapsed.

However, after a cautious restart in January, the new facility is on track to be completed in July, much earlier than the initial target of September.

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Luv-A-Duck's chief executive, James Thompson, said the contractor, Vaughn Construction, was working "feverishly" to get the project finished.

The company lost about 70 per cent of its food service market in the past 12 months, he said.

"It was a matter of battening down the hatches and preserving capital, but as restrictions eased around the country, the business had the confidence to slowly increase our capacity and numbers, and to service the market," he said.

"With that too, we had the confidence to talk with our builder and commence resumption of our build."

The Ballarat facility will complement the Nhill operations site, and will be used to create fresh cut, cooked, and value-added duck products for retail and food service markets in Australia and overseas, according to a media release.

It's expected to employ 35 staff, including some from the Nhill site, when it opens - Mr Thompson said the business had been forced to let some casuals go and make redundancies during the pandemic's nadir, but the plan from here was all growth.

"We ran down our inventories to a significantly low level - now we're trying to claw back what we've lost through that period," he said.

"While there'll be a decoupling of the value-add plant (from Nhill) to Ballarat, it'll be an overall growth in staff numbers across the business."

He added this will also mean potential changes in Nhill, with an opportunity to "redevelop our Nhill operations, and that may mean in a medium term a redevelopment of the whole site or building a brand new plant."

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The Ballarat West Employment Zone is a joint state government and City of Ballarat project to encourage businesses to build new facilities on greenfield land and create jobs - several projects have already been completed, with the second stage, adjacent to the Ballarat airport, also under way.

As well as Luv-A-Duck, construction, farm machinery, and grain companies have set-up shop at the site, and Australian brewer Broo has planned a giant organic brewery, entertainment centre, and zipline.

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