SPC Ardmona has seen the future - and it doesn't come in a can.
Less than a month after securing its future with a $100 million injection from the Victorian government and parent company Coca Cola-Amatil, the iconic fruit and vegetable company is rebranding, repositioning, rethinking and - so the plan goes - resurrecting with new products aimed at a new market.
That market is time-poor, health-conscious and wants convenience, according to SPC Ardmona marketing and innovation director Bronwyn Powell.
So the new products are things like fruit in coconut water, fruit spread with chia, soft-serve whipped fruit and snack-sized packs.
"Our lifestyle has changed from 100 years ago," Powell says.
"We're snacking more, we're at work more, we just don't have the time to prepare food."
Big changes are under way at the company's Shepparton, Victoria, cannery even before the $100 million - $22 million from the state government, $78 million from Coca Cola-Amatil - has arrived.
For a start, they don't want to call it a cannery any more.
The new product line-up comes in plastic tubs and jars with fewer cans.
"Canned fruit is a reasonable part of our business but we actually sell more product in the little cups we sell under Goulburn Valley than we sell in cans," Powell says.
Canned products are still a significant part of SPC Ardmona's business but the segment is in decline.
"Cans do carry on but our view is that we don't want to be called a cannery anymore; we want to be an innovative food company with fruit and vegetables at the core of what we do," Powell says.
SPC Ardmona produces fruit, jams, condiments, soups and vegetables under a range of labels including SPC, IXL, Ardmona and Goulburn Valley.
Innovative, value-added products that deliver a higher margin are the goal of the new strategy and on March 10 the first such product hits the market: a fruit spread with chia seeds marketed under a new label, Henry Jones.
Another product already in some McDonald's and 7-Eleven outlets is Perfect Fruit - a whipped, 100 per cent fruit soft-serve product.
Snack-sized packs of fruit in coconut water will be released later this year.
Coca Cola-Amatil wrote down the value of SPC Ardmona by $404 million in February, and the processor has also had challenges in the form of competition from private label products and cheap imports - particularly Italian tomatoes dumped in the Australian market.
Now SPC Ardmona has had some victories, with supply contracts for all major supermarket operators and the imposition of dumping duties on many imported tomatoes.
There is still more to be done though.
Powell says new products to be rolled out this year will make a material difference to the company's sales.
"Once we put the co-investment into place we will continue that transformation of the business with new processing and packaging capabilities," she says.
"We have to do more products in plastic, more cups, other ways of offering fruit up to the consumer that we haven't even thought of yet."
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