Go Local! New Tauriko concrete plant gains $4m investment

Mixup Concrete's Craig Ward, Kyle O'Brien and Steve Hall at the new concrete plant. Photo / George Novak

A Tauranga concrete company has merged with a cement business and invested $4 million into a new site due to demand and a need to expand its operations.

Base Up Contracting and HR Cement have formed a new company called Mixup Concrete, which will be based out of a new concrete plant in the Tauriko Business Estate.

The new concrete plant was officially opened at an event yesterday. The locally-owned Base-Up company has for many years been supplying Tauranga's building industry with a large proportion of the concrete it requires, and the firm employs more than 150 people.

Mixup Concrete managing director Kyle O'Brien said the business had outgrown its Greerton site and needed to expand into a larger concrete plant.

"It was designed for four trucks and now we have 12," he said.

O'Brien said the business had its busiest month in June.

"We are at our max peak right now," he said. "That is a back-up of Covid and consents being processed during the lockdown. But we have steady growth ahead of us."

O'Brien said with the growth of the business, it made sense to align himself with a cement company.

The new Mixup Concrete plant at Tauriko Business Estate was officially opened yesterday. Photo / George Novak

While the new 9000sq m concrete plant would not create new employment straight away, it did offer scope for future growth.

"We are future-proofing ourselves for us and our clients. More clients mean more trucks and more trucks mean more employees."

The new concrete plant's building will be run out of portable buildings, but O'Brien said the company had spent $4m on the operational side of the business at its new Tauriko site.

"We chose Tauriko as our hub for the commercial sector," he said.

O'Brien said that with 6-7 years of growth at Tauriko, the potential of similar large-scale developments, the growth at Omokoroa, Katikati and still being able to service Papamoa from the site as well, the new plant made sense.