Peanuts destined for the tip will soon become specialty cold pressed oil.

Plenty Foods in Kingaroy have received a $200, 000 grant from the Queensland Government to expand their business.

Plenty Foods managing director Josh Gadischke and the Queensland State Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner MP met on Friday 19 August to discuss how the Rural Economic Development (RED) Grants scheme would be used.

“We’ve come along to see the outcome of our rural economic development grants,” Mr Furner said.

The rural economic grants are awarded for businesses to grow their business and to grow employment.

“The funds provided to Plenty Foods in Kingaroy in the South Burnett will help Australia meet a growing demand for peanut oil, and create good jobs in the region.

“With Plenty Foods increasing its production capacity of peanut oil, we can further reduce Australia’s reliance on the imported product.”

“This project alone will add eight new long-term, full-time good jobs in the South Burnett.”

Plenty Foods managing director Josh Gadischke said the grant will go towards a filling machine that will be used to increase the business’ output.

“It will be going into a purpose-built filling machine/ bottling machine,” Mr Gadischke said.

“It’s a six-head filler, with about a 5 million bottle a year capacity.”

“The growth of the business means we need more capacity and one of the challenges here in Australia is the capital cost increase capacity is high and so grants like this allow us to expand in Australia.”

This is a necessary step for Plenty Foods after increased demand for peanut oil has put pressure on their existing filing lines and staff.

“We simply need to increase our output capacity or risk losing contracts to interstate and overseas suppliers.

“The additional demand for peanut oil will allow Plenty Foods to acquire peanuts that have traditionally been treated as ‘waste’ and have been discarded by local growers.”

Around 3 million tons of would-be waste is saved by turning it into high-grade food oil.

“We will now be able to acquire the ‘waste’ product and turn it into a food-grade cooking oil of high standard. The entire process greatly reduces waste and food miles, creating a real value-add for local growers.”

Plenty Foods is one of 16 businesses approved in the fourth round of the RED Grants program with total funding of just over $3 million.

Overall, these 16 projects are expected to create more than 217 direct long-term jobs across regional Queensland.

The initial three rounds of the RED Grants program have seen funding of $10 million over three years to support more than 30 projects which have created 1,800 jobs across regional Queensland.