Sunnybrand has recently upgraded its production plant, hatchery and breeder farms, to the latest technology available. In fact the processing plant has new, unique equipment, and is the only plant in Australia at this time with such equipment including the new Easyload automatic live bird handling system, an automatic evisceration machine, an air chilling processed bird cooling system and a new weighing and transfer system called Chickway.

This modern equipment replaces a manual live bird handling system and a manual evisceration machine that took four employees to operate. The cooling system used was two chilled water spin chillers and all the chickens were weighed by an out dated, slow computerised system.

No research and development is conducted at this plant, as we are customer and market driven.

Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance is a very big part of our operation. Sunnybrand employs a QA manager and an assistant, who continually carry out checks on temperature, procedures and quality of product at all critical control points throughout the processing procedure.
Monitoring sheets are filled out on a regular basis during production and these results are scrutinised by management on a daily basis. Any breech of our QA procedures is quickly brought to the attention of the QA manager or supervisors and necessary corrective procedures put into place to correct the non conformity.

Customer Focus
We are a market driven company, that strives to provide what our customers require. If another chicken company produces a new line, we will develop that same line to offer to our customers.

Our tele-marketing team is highly trained to ensure our customers orders are placed and delivered within a very small time frame.  Our error level is exeptionally low considering the number of orders placed each week. To ensure customers are serviced well during the peak periods of Easter and Christmas, our sales team do not take any annual leave at these times to ensure all staff is available for the increased workload.  Our Telesales Team Leader ensures all credit claims are processed as quickly as possible.

Environmental Responsibilities
Sunnybrand Chickens is continually monitored by the EPA and must follow strict guide lines laid down by them on the disposal of all waste product, including water. We sell all our blood and solid waste to a rendering plant (A.J. Bush Pty Ltd) which turns the feathers into feather meal, and the bones, meat scrap and offal into poultry offal meal. This meal is then purchased back from them as a high protein feed supplement. The blood is made into blood and bone meal, for use on your gardens.

All waste water is treated on site by a modern filtration plant. The water first passes over a machine called a Bow strainer, removing all solids which are sent to the rendering plant. The water that remains then passes through a clarifier where all the sediment settles to the bottom and all the fats rise to the top. The fat is skimmed off hourly, stored and sent to the rendering plant. All the sediment is extracted, stored and a farmer purchases this product as a fertiliser for his farm.

The water then passes into an anaerobic pond (which in our case is a series of green tanks) where micro-organisms do their job of breaking down any further solids still in the water. From there it passes through to an open pond where it leeches out into the surrounding timbered and grassed areas and provides a drop-in centre for a myriad of local wildlife.

Career Opportunities

There are plenty of career opportunities within the establishment due to the varied types of work required to keep such a large company on track.  From the factory floor and maintenance to the distribution, marketing and finance areas, Sunnybrand Chickens employs around 450 people including management, supervisory staff, permanent employees, trainees, apprentices and casuals.

The company is committed to giving employees as many opportunities as possible and encourages internal applications for any positions that become available.  For example, a person who started here as a junior labourer is now one of our best boners taking home an excellent pay packet each week. Another person who started off working in the evisceration room, gutting chickens, is now an assistant factory manager and one of our factory employees is now an IT trainee.

All workers, both male and female, are treated equally in conditions and pay. Allowances are made for pregnant employees, and employees who have special needs.  Staff medical needs are well taken care of by our on-site fully trained nurse.

For more information on the chicken industry see The Australian Chickens Meat Federation website

www.chicken.org.au