Fifty workers are likely to be made redundant at Foster’s flagship wine bottling factory at Karadoc with more at risk if the industry cannot solve its oversupply problem.

There were high hopes yesterday the 100 staff and contractors tied to the future of Neqtar wines (SdS Beverages) at Irymple may be able to keep their jobs if a buyer can be found for the ailing business.

“The business itself is sound, it had some cash flow problems but we are in talks about finding a buyer,” a spokesman for administrators PriceWaterhouseCoopers said yesterday.

Many blockies have already walked off their farms, others have dried off their land, more still are trying desperately to switch industries all as a result of an ill-considered rush into wine at the end of the last century.

“Mildura seems to be coping well with the global financial crisis but it hasn’t weathered the wine industry downturn too well,” Member for Mildura Peter Crisp said yesterday.

Better news on the jobs front can be found with the return to work for almost 40 workers on the mineral sands mine at Iluka’s Ouyen mine.

For more of this story, purchase your copy of Thursday’s Sunraysia Daily 02/07/2009.