Training and Capacity Building Initiative of the Potato Workforce Training and Leadership Program (PT24002)

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Expressions of interest are now open for potato growers and industry stakeholders to participate in a two-day training and leadership program in Melbourne in November 2026.

The training involves a one-day session on implementing productivity and profitability improvements in your business delivered by advisory firm PSVC Advisory.

Day two includes attending the third annual Hort Business Summit where you will hear a range of presentations on topics such as business benchmarking, integrating AI in your business, and how to use consumer retail data.

Applications close Friday 25 September.

Who can apply?

Levy paying potato growers and industry stakeholders are welcome to submit an EOI application. If EOIs exceed the number of positions available candidates will be selected across a range of criteria.

What does it cost?

Successful applicants will have the following costs covered:

• Return airfares (if applicable)
• Two nights accommodation (if applicable)
• One-day Improving Productivity and Profitability of Australian Potato Enterprises Training
• Complimentary attendance at the Hort Business Summit (Melbourne CBD)

Networking dinners will be held on 18 and 19 November.

Who should attend?

• Business Owners
• Managing Directors
• General Managers
• Operations Managers
• Farm Managers
• Production Managers
• Packhouse Managers (Fresh Market)
• Harvest Managers
• Senior Operations Staff

Improving Productivity and Profitability Workshop Design and Agenda

The workshop is deliberately interactive.

To maximise the value of the workshop, every participant completes two online diagnostics before attending:

1. One Enterprise Productivity Diagnostic – participants complete either the Processing Potato or Fresh Market Potato diagnostic, depending on the type of enterprise they operate.
2. One Workforce Capability Diagnostic – completed by all participants, regardless of enterprise type.

Together, the two diagnostics provide an integrated assessment of the operational systems and workforce capability required to achieve sustained productivity improvement.

Participants spend very little time listening to presentations and most of the day analysing their own businesses.

As part of the training and to get the most out of it, you will be asked to do some prior homework and answer questions around the processes in your business so we can tailor the training to your situation. Participants will not be asked to share data or financial information, only to answer a structured series of just qualitative questions.

Expected Industry Benefits

The workshop aims to help participating potato industry businesses:

• Identify previously unseen productivity opportunities
• Improve labour productivity
• Strengthen workforce capability
• Reduce avoidable operational waste
• Improve utilisation of assets and technology
• Enhance decision making
• Build stronger continuous improvement capability
• Improve long-term profitability and business resilience

Rather than focusing on isolated operational improvements, the course provides participants with a practical framework for continuously identifying and capturing productivity opportunities across their enterprise.

Who is PSVC?

PSVC Advisory is a specialist agribusiness consultancy helping vertically integrated horticultural businesses improve productivity, profitability and competitiveness. Working exclusively in agribusiness, PSVC combines commercial insight, primary production expertise, workforce design and lean improvement capability.

The team works alongside owners, managers and frontline leaders to align production with customer demand, strengthen permanent and seasonal workforce performance, and systematically eliminate waste across growing, harvesting, processing, packing and supply chain operations.

Through practical diagnostics, strategy development, training, coaching and implementation support, PSVC builds internal capability and embeds sustainable continuous improvement that delivers measurable results across complex seasonal agribusiness operations in Australia and internationally.

Simon Drum

Simon Drum is Managing Director of PSVC Advisory and an agribusiness productivity specialist with more than 25 years’ experience.

He brings extensive senior commercial and operational experience across large-scale fresh vegetable production, processing, packing, supply chains and retail account management. Simon has worked with vertically integrated horticultural businesses in Australia and internationally, helping them improve market alignment, labour productivity and profitability.

He combines practical vegetable-industry knowledge with expertise in lean management, workforce design and continuous improvement. His engaging, hands-on approach helps owners, managers and supervisors identify waste and translate productivity principles into measurable improvements.

Testimonial

Working with Simon Drum from PSVC Advisory has helped us look at our business differently.

In berry production, it is easy for inefficiencies to become accepted as part of a busy season. Simon has challenged our team to observe the work properly, measure what is happening and separate value-adding activity from unnecessary movement, waiting, handling and rework.

His support has helped us develop practical improvement programs across harvest, packhouse and non-harvest operations. These include improving workforce and trainer planning, redesigning supervisor workloads, reviewing labour-intensive farm tasks, strengthening standard operating procedures, balancing packhouse production lines and improving visual management and material flow.

Simon’s facilitation of our harvest logistics improvement work was especially valuable. The process brought multiple departments together to design a safer and more efficient system, with clear operating targets for manual handling, fruit movement, trailer turnaround, ergonomics and cool-chain performance.

What I value most is that Simon’s advice is practical. He understands that an improvement must work for supervisors, seasonal employees, machinery operators and management, not just look good on paper. He gives teams the structure and tools to solve problems themselves and to keep improving after the initial project is complete.

Importantly, Simon’s work has not just been about improving processes; it has also been about developing people. He has helped us think more strategically about leadership capability, trainer development, succession planning and workforce design. By creating clearer standards, building management capability and equipping our supervisors and trainers with practical continuous improvement tools, Simon has helped strengthen the long-term capability of our business, not just its short-term performance.

Simon has made a valuable contribution to Burlington Berries, and I would recommend him to any farming or agribusiness operation wanting to improve productivity, reduce waste, develop their people and make LEAN principles part of the way the business operates.

Laurie Adams
General Manager, Burlington Berries

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