Australian Company History

1968

McCain Australia Pty Ltd was formed and commenced selling imported French Fries on July 1st that year.  By 1970 three salesmen were employed.

1970

A small potato processing plant at Daylesford was purchased and manufacturing operations commenced.  Many upgrades were made to the plant over the next three years and sales increased to a point where a decision was made to build a new plant.  Ballarat was the chosen location for the new plant because of the district’s potato growing reputation.  At this point there were approximately 100 employees.

1975

The new Ballarat plant began French Fry production and by 1977 there were 150 employees at the Ballarat plant.

1976

A section of the Daylesford plant was rebuilt and McCain commenced the manufacture of frozen pizzas. The company employed 25 people at the Daylesford plant.

1978

An existing plant (which was situated adjacent to the new McCain plant in Ballarat) was purchased and pizza production was moved to this location.

1982

The company name was changed from McCain Australia Pty Limited, to McCain Foods (Aust) Pty Ltd.

1983

A Potato Specialties Plant was built alongside the already existing French Fry Plant at the Ballarat site.   This plant was to produce non French fry potato products such as potato cakes.   Production commenced in 1983.

1984

McCain purchased the Copper Kettle Vegetable Processing Plant in Smithton, Tasmania, thereby gaining entry into the frozen vegetable market.  The Copper Kettle products were gradually re-branded with the McCain logo but retained a smaller version of the Copper Kettle logo so that the products were identifiable to loyal customers.  At this point in time McCain was now operating in four frozen food markets, french fries, pizzas, potato specialties and vegetables.

1985

McCain entered the frozen dinner market with the manufacture and marketing of a range of low calorie dinners under the name of McCain Dinner Classics.  These products were produced in a section of the existing Pizza Plant.

1987

McCain purchased Chalet Foods Sydney, along with the Gold Crest and Milani range of dinner products.  Later that same year the plant was moved from Sydney to Ballarat adjacent to the Pizza Plant.  These products were gradually re-branded under the McCain name and repackaged. 

1988

An additional Potato Processing plant was built in Smithton, Tasmania adjacent to the vegetable processing plant.  McCain sales had grown to a point where additional potato processing capacity was essential.  Tasmania provided a climate that is well suited to growing good quality potatoes.  As McCain already had a vegetable plant up and running in Tasmania it seemed to be the ideal location.

1990

Early in 1990 McCain Foods (Aust) Pty Ltd purchased NZ Alpine Foods, a vegetable processing company at Timaru on the South Island of New Zealand.

1992

McCain purchased Safries Pty Ltd, a potato processing company located at Penola in south-east South Australia.  Safries’ production was and still is targeted towards the foodservice market. 

1994

A potato processing plant was built in Timaru, New Zealand adjacent to the Vegetable Plant.  This enabled McCain to market locally produced potato products which had previously been imported from Australia.

1995

In December 1995 McCain purchased the Griff’s retail dinner business from Comgroup Supplies Pty Ltd in Sydney.  This operation was moved to Ballarat and McCain began producing under the Griff’s label in February 1996.

1996

McCain purchased Growers Foods, a canning and frozen vegetable/fruit processing company located in Hastings, New Zealand.

1997

1997 saw the beginning of big changes for McCain Foods (Aust) Pty Ltd, with a multi-million dollar upgrade of the Ballarat French Fry plant; allowing it to produce 15 tonne of finished product per hour, an increase of 3 tonne per hour.  

A further multi-million dollar expansion of the Dinner Manufacturing plant saw the addition of a separate dinner production and preparation area as well as a new dinner production line.  The packaging area was tripled in size to allow for further automation and a new loading and unloading area was added.

Further upgrades included the waste handling facilities to allow for better separation of recyclable goods.  The expansions have seen the size of the dinner and pizza plant almost double.

1999

Further multi-million dollar expansions were undertaken to upgrade the Potato Specialty plant in Ballarat and the pre-existing cold storage.  The cold storage facility has been constructed to provide the highest quality temperature conditions for storage and handling of frozen food products.

2002

Further expansions to our Prepared Foods Plant were completed. This will help to continue to build our competitive advantage in the market place and ensure we remain the low cost / best quality producer of frozen pizza and dinners in Australia.

Additionally, a major distribution warehouse was completed in Timaru.

This timeline does not include every plant upgrade undertaken as this is really a continuous process.

McCain is committed to ensuring that its production facilities in Australia and New Zealand are of the highest standard. There is no higher priority for a food company than the safety of its products. We have adopted the American Institute of Bakers (AIB) Gold Standard certification system which assures customers that a manufacturer’s facility has met the highest standards of:

• Sanitation and cleanliness
• Food safety
• Ingredient quality
• Manufacturing integrity

More information regarding the AIB Gold Standard is available in our FAQs.