Click here for video

Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (13:20): Well done to McCain Foods Australia for its investment in renewable energy at their Wendouree plant.

McCain Foods is a Canadian-owned family business with its Australian headquarters in Ballarat. For nearly 45 years McCain has been making chips, wedges and fries in Wendouree, with potatoes mainly sourced from local farms, as well as producing prepared foods including frozen dinners and pizzas.

McCain supports many local jobs in my community, including the hundreds of people directly employed by the company at the manufacturing plant in Wendouree, as well as supporting local jobs at local suppliers and contractors.

McCain has a company-wide commitment to reduce its CO2 emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, quit coal power by 2025 and switch to 100 per cent renewables by 2030.

Last year McCain Foods commenced a massive 8.2-megawatt renewable system for its Wendouree facility that includes an impressive 17 000-panel farm and a cogenerational anaerobic digester that turns food scraps into biogas to generate energy. This system will reduce the facility’s energy consumption by 39 per cent, with a cogenerational anaerobic digester reducing its reliance on natural gas by 16 per cent.

I would like to commend the management and team at McCain on this important action that addresses climate change and secures jobs for our future in Ballarat.

Click here to read more of my contributions in Parliament. To access further Hansard transcripts, head to the Parliament of Victoria website.