Major Mildura freight company, GTS Freight Management, and its highway and warehousing arm, G1 Logistics, have committed long term to the Sunraysia region.
With support from the State Government Regional Jobs Fund, GTS has announced its national headquarters will undergo a significant redevelopment.
The $4 million project itself will add 57 new full-time-equivalent jobs.
It is understood GTS expects to expand its local workforce by around one-third — the equivalent of around 80 full time staff.
Almost 60 per cent of the national company’s workforce is based at its Mildura headquarters.
Since its founding in 1980 as a lone truck operation, GTS has bloomed into a fleet of approximately 200 prime movers, including subcontractors and 450 trailers, nationwide.
Naturally this has led to subsequent overtures for it to relocate to a capital city.
Such a move was under serious consideration in terms of the ease of accessing resources and cheaper construction costs according to Chief Financial Officer Ben Chatfield.
“Being a major transport company in a capital city certainly has its advantages and it is fairly attractive,” said Chatfield.
“While it makes a lot of sense commercially, ultimately we are a regional-based carrier and we’re really proud of being from Sunraysia. We do really love the region and love where we live,” he said.
“Ultimately, we wanted to stay. It was just nice to have some incentives to be able to keep it here.”
The Regional Jobs and Infrastructure Fund is part of the Victorian Government’s near $30 billion investment in rural and regional Victoria that commenced in 2015.
GTS has been situated at the site of its current depot since 2006.
Chatfield said the business had outgrown its head office after a sustained period of ongoing growth.
“We want to build a new office which we’ll make our corporate head office which allows us to continue to grow into the future,” he said.
Operational expenses for the next decade are likely to eclipse $1 billion Damien Matthew GTS Managing Director recently told the Mildura Weekly.
Much of this includes rent, wages, repairs and fuel — the majority of which gets injected back into the local Mildura economy.
The spend doesn’t, however, include capital expenditure on the likes of mobile assets.
G1 Logistics, with its distinct purple and black colour scheme, runs a fleet of new trucks spec’d for interstate B-double work including 50 PBS-approved high productivity vehicles by local manufacturing partners such as Vawdrey.
“We’ve now expanded from a regionally based wine and glass carrier to a major carrier to the national supermarket supply chain, as well as continuing to service the wine and beverage industry,” Matthews told the Mildura Weekly.
“We’ve grown to having 10 per cent of our volume being generated in the Sunraysia region and 90 per cent around our operations in every capital city of Australia, except Darwin,” he said.
At present GTS is planning a new purpose-built facility in Adelaide.
Last year GTS started receiving produce from the Northern Territory into its existing Adelaide depot.
From there G1 Logistics effectively hubbed it across to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
“One of the reasons why we’re building a new Adelaide depot is to service that contract,” said Chatfield.