MON Natural Foods employees with the brand-new transport truck.
Photo by
Abby Green
The MON Natural Foods slogan is ‘Straight from the sauce’ and it is indeed straight from the source, with its products made with 100 per cent Australian-grown tomatoes from around the region.
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This Barooga based Aussie sauce company is now making leaps towards a greener footprint and a more sustainable future, all while investing in local community projects.
Factory manager Howard Green whose family took over the business in 2012, said they sold a range of different sauces including steak, barbecue and tomato.
“The Mon Tomato Ozesauce is our biggest volume line,” Mr Green said.
“The total tonnage of tomatoes is about 1200 ... we work with suppliers out of Echuca and our product, since the beginning, has always been made with 100 per cent Australian-grown tomatoes.”
Mr Green said the company prioritised employing local staff and had a 10-year club, which currently featured 12 members.
“We’re very proud that we have a lot of long-term staff here,” he said.
“There’s a lot of rich manufacturing experience around here and we have benefited greatly.
The new MON truck can transport 84 pallets compared to only 64 pallets on the standard sized truck.
Photo by
Abby Green
“We have had people come in off the street, put an application in, start on the line and they are now my production manager.”
The company is also actively involved in supporting local community sports events, including golf, soccer and surf life-saving.
“We did a program with the surf life savers where every bottle sold we contributed 50 cents back to the surf life savers,” Mr Green said.
“We used our red and yellow striped bottle that was originally for a Mon Tomusto product, a tomato mustard mix, as it looked like the surf life savers colours.
“We raised about $100,000 the first summer and we’re just coming to the end of the second round of the campaign, concluding at the end of this month.”
Mr Green said the company was pleased to announce that it had recently got a new truck that would be able to transport more stock efficiently.
“Being regional, we have to fully utilise freight, as it’s a big cost for us, and having a bigger truck improves our cost position,” he said.
MON factory manager Howard Green with project and maintenance manager Andrew Leimgruber, cutting the ribbon to officially open the new expanded warehouse.
Photo by
Abby Green
Instead of 68 pallets on the standard truck, the new truck is able to transport up to 84 pallets, making a huge difference for the company.
The warehouse was also expanded last year, to match the business’ growth.
“It’s a bit of excitement for the staff to get around and reflect on what has been a crazy couple of years,” Mr Green said.
Project and maintenance manager Andrew Leimgruber said the business was planning on doubling solar power capacity and was investigating the inclusion of batteries to improve its ‘green footprint’.
For more information about MON Natural Foods, visit monfoods.com.au
