Historical information

Hall's Bakery was established in Wodonga in 1930. In 1960, Bob Hall and Albury bakers Wynne and Thiel joined Bunge's Albury Flour Mills in forming a new company, Southern Border Bakeries. The three bakeries continued to operate separately, but in 1972 Southern Border built the Sunicrust Bakery in Kendall St.

A strange anomaly in interstate trade regulations in the 1970s required some innovative thinking. In Victoria, it was illegal to transport bread over 75km, so to get around this, Sunicrust rented a shed in South Albury known at Southern Border Bakeries. Bread from Wodonga was transported to Albury in a semi-trailer loads of 10,000 units. It was unloaded and placed in the shed. A docket was written out and the bread was reloaded and was free to be sent back over the border and sent to Melbourne if need be. This manoeuvre complied with Section 92 of the Australian Constitution allowing free trade between States.

By 1997, the Sunicrust bakery employed 100 people and produced 200,000 units a week.
Goodman Fielder acquired the Sunicrust brand when they purchased Bunge Australia's baking and milling assets in late 1998. Gradually employment fell and Goodman Fielder decided that Wodonga was a small plant and it is no longer economically viable to keep it going. Baking ceased in 2007 with the loss of 44 jobs. Goodman Fielder retained a distribution depot on site.

Significance

These photos are significance because they document an important manufacturing industry based in Wodonga from the 1970s to 2007,

Physical description

Two photographs of the Sunicrust Bakery in Wodonga. In the coloured photo it has been renamed as Goodman Fielder.