Southern Cotton: cottoning on to a $26m sector renaissance | The Australian
Four years ago the Southern Cotton-ginning business was little more than an empty paddock in Murrumbidgee Valley, a daydream, and a lot of potential.
But today the cotton-ginning business in southwest NSW is a thriving $26 million-a-year business and the latest winner of the Regional Award at the 2015 Telstra Australian Business Awards for its innovative use of technology and business nous.
The brainchild of six grower friends, Southern Cotton started in 2011 when directors Tim and Roger Commins, Gerard and John Toscan, Scott Hogan and Larry Walsh became fed up with the 800km round trip to gin their cotton so built their own facility.
Four years later Southern Cotton’s Whitton-based gin is used by 100 local growers and is considered a main driver of the region’s rebirth as a cotton-processing centre, serving more than 35,000ha of cotton crops.
The business earned its gong from Telstra for deploying a state-of-the-art Radio Frequency Identification tracking system, which gives growers data from the paddock to the finished bale via smartphone or tablet.
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