Tweed’s bold plan
Shire encouraged to back start-ups to produce success stories like Husk
THE Tweed Shire Council is attempting to be bolder in its lust for new small businesses to create jobs and prosperity in the shire, according to councillor Warren Polglase.
Mr Polglase (right) was one of 90 people at the council’s launch of the Tweed Business Portal at Mantra on Salt at Casuarina yesterday.
The launch was an opportunity for the shire to showcase some of its best small business- es and get established business leaders to network.
“We are trying to create an economic environment where we attract successful businesses to the Tweed,” Cr Polglase said. “We have successful businesses here that have done very well and we want people to pool information to encourage more people to be involved.”
He said Tweed was a region with a lot of “mum and dad businesses” and with its focus on sustainability he didn’t expect big corporations would be attracted to the shire.
“The council needs to go out there and back new business with incentives,” he said.
“Every now and then you might get a bad one but you get four good ones as well – that’s the risk you take.”
One of those good businesses in the region is Husk Distillers which is known for its award-winning rum and gin.
Early next year the business will open its Tumbulgum distillery to the public.
The 60ha sugar cane farm distillery business was launched as Husk Distillers in 2012, after a family trip with father Paul Messenger and his wife Mandy Perkins, sisters Edwina, Harriet and Claudia, and their grandma, to the French Caribbean where they first tasted agricole rum.
Like most businesses in the Tweed they take advantage of the natural environment and the region’s history.
Edwina Messenger said the family grew their own sugar cane, a plant that’s flourished in the shire for a century due to the region’s high annual rainfall.
“We then get in our big harvester, cut the cane into a big container and then take it up to our own crusher,” she said.
“Then we crush the cane and use that sugar to make our rum.”
She said it was a small operation with her direct family and contracted farmers during the crushing season.
“It is great doing business in the Tweed and we think a lot of people like our products because they are made here,” she said.