Manufacturing has resumed at the location in Australia where General Motors closed the last Holden plant more than five years ago.
Instead of cars, though, the site is producing mushrooms. It’s now the home of a $110 million plant that government officials say will become the “exotic mushroom capital of Australia.”
The plant’s owner, Epicurean Food Group, expects to eventually produce about 22,000 tons of raw mushrooms and mushroom products a year there.
“We start with white oyster mushrooms, then we will go into shiitake, enoki and king oyster,” Epicurean CEO Kenneth King told Australia’s ABC News.
But in contrast to the thousands of people who used to build cars and station wagons there, the plant has just 37 full-time staffers, including some who used to work for Holden. The work force is expected to reach about 350 by the middle of next year.
“I’ve got a number of ex-Holden people and they’re wonderful workers. They’ve been really well received,” King said. “This will be the only truly professional-style exotic mushroom farm in the country. There are lots of others, but no one has ever gone to the extent that I have.”
