“It has probably put us 10 years ahead of where we would have been otherwise.”
The Cool Group of Companies managing directors Gareth Williams and Alfi Prestipino will be able to expand their businesses in a jointly-funded $4 million project following the announcement of federal funding for local organisations and businesses last week.
The grant forms part of a $20 million investment into industry and business in Gippsland designed to boost the economy and foster job growth.
The company plans to construct a purpose-built facility in Morwell where it can house its businesses under one roof and expand the product range for export overseas and to other parts of the state.
“The project is to build a greenfield site to house both existing businesses, Cool Aqua Springs and Hip Pocket Workwear and Safety Latrobe Valley, under the one roof,” Mr Prestipino said.
“This would incorporate products from both businesses such as workwear, safety, hospitality wear, a healthcare range, corporate wear, team wear, footwear, spring water, filtration products, rehydration products and much more.
“[It will] also introduce a 600ml bottling plant which will also open up the windows for us to potentially export into China and expand our 600ml bottling division throughout Australia.
“With the expansion of the floor space for Hip Pocket it will also give us the opportunity to introduce and expand our current stock levels for the hospitality industry, healthcare, school wear, team wear, which we have recognised there is a market for it, but we haven’t been able to dabble into it because we haven’t got the floor space for it.”
Both Morwell born-and-bred, Mr Prestipino and Mr Williams want to create more jobs in the region and said they were committed to using local contractors and builders in the construction of the building. “The core business at Hip Pocket is workwear and safety at the moment, we dabble into a little bit of corporate, but we haven’t been able to because we have been restricted with size. Now with the grant we are looking at building a building in excess of 1500 square metres which will give us the opportunity to house all of that stock,” Mr Williams said.
“In the application, construction will employ 20 people which will all be local.
“We want to use all local builders and 100 per cent local contractors. With both of us being Morwell boys, born and bred, we want to use 100 per cent local as much as we can.”
