Freighter Group has today announced that it will be closing its trailer manufacturing facility in Carole Park, Queensland, following a decision to focus on centralising its trailer manufacturing business in Ballarat, located in regional Victoria.
“Since Australian Trailer Solutions Group (ATSG) purchased the Freighter Group trailer business in September 2021, our focus has been on setting the business up for long-term sustainability,” said Greg L’Estrange Freighter Group Executive Chairman. “This is to ensure that we can remain a viable Australian business to continue supporting our customers long into the future, as we have done so for over 75 years in the industry.”
ATSG is coming into its third year of ownership of Freighter Group, and the business is preparing for the next phase of its expansion with the company investing significantly to grow and develop the Ballarat manufacturing site.
“This investment is a demonstration of our total commitment to support local manufacturing, which will transform the trailer manufacturing industry in Australia to enable our business to continue delivering a high-quality product that continues to evolve with the changing needs of our industry,” said Greg. Adding that our expanding capability will ensure Freighter Group is well positioned to help our customers to continue delivering industry excellence.
Freighter Group officially opened the Carole Park facility in February 2021, where it primarily produced tipper products under the Lusty EMS, Hamelex White and AZMEB brands. The business is set to close manufacturing at the site by the end of March 2024, with all existing and future orders for these products to be produced at its Ballarat facility.
As the Carole Park site was establishing itself in the Queensland market, post pandemic pressures, including continual changes in the labour market and growing costs to run the 14,300m2 site, meant that it was no longer viable to hold two large trailer manufacturing sites for the business long term.
We take this opportunity to thank everyone within the Carole Park manufacturing facility for their total commitment and extensive efforts to try and boost the capability of the site, unfortunately this decision was needed so that our business remains here long into the future.
Ahead of the announcement, Freighter Group has been gearing up to support the growth and expansion of its manufacturing capability at the Ballarat site, where it will now produce the full range of Lusty EMS, Hamelex White and AZMEB products alongside Freighter and Maxi-CUBE.
Through the site upgrade, Ballarat has the capacity to take on the full production of these brands which will ensure there is no impact to our customers as we transition between the manufacturing facilities.
As a business, Freighter Group has many employees with extensive experience under their belt, including several roles that were based at Carole Park.
“Since ATSG purchased the business, our commitment has never strayed on supporting the needs of our people, which makes today’s decision an extremely difficult one. To ensure we retain as many people as possible and their experience, Freighter Group is in the process of discussions with reallocating roles to other areas of the business and supporting their relocation to other sites where applicable,” said Greg.
“While we are saddened by this decision, we are certainly excited for the long-term future of the business, as we forge ahead with our plans to expand the manufacturing capability at our Ballarat site and continue serving our customers and the transport industry,” said Greg.
