Elder Electorate Businesses

Mrs POWER (Elder) (15:48): I rise to recognise the outstanding efforts and hard work by those in our local community through their local businesses in light of the past very challenging 12 months. COVID restrictions helped keep South Australians safe and strong but undoubtedly had a huge impact on many businesses. To the credit of many local businesses in my local electorate, they confronted the challenges of COVID-19 head-on, became agile in their businesses and adapted. Within my local community, there are countless examples of businesses that have pivoted and emerged stronger, some with new business models to take forward.

Having recently visited some of those local businesses, I would like to acknowledge a few. One of those is the much-loved Kytons Bakery, located in Edwardstown. Baking in South Australia since 1938, Kytons Bakery was founded as a family business. It has been sold twice in its history, but on each occasion to a family friend of the previous owner, keeping those ties very close.

Darren and Sharon Sutton took over in 2003 and Minister Pisoni and I had the absolute pleasure of meeting them and learning more about their incredible business. Last year, they indeed faced challenges of not being able to open their shopfront, but they pivoted quickly and opened up a shop window enabling customers to still purchase direct from them, whilst being COVID safe, and this helped to see them through that challenging time.

In an incredible feat, I want to share that Kytons Bakery bake 24,000 lamingtons per day—it is absolutely incredible—and half a million hot cross buns over the seven-week period in the lead-up to Easter. This little bakery is punching well and truly above its weight in what it is achieving and the quality of products that it is producing. Certainly, with Easter fast approaching, I encourage everybody to get behind a local bakery and support bakeries like Kytons in our local area. I can also attest to their incredible lamingtons, or the 'lovingtons', which were around on Valentine's Day that both the minister and I had a chance to sample; they were just delicious.

Also in Edwardstown is tech company GaP Solutions. They are a sale and retail management software developer, as well as a supplier of food processing and weighing equipment for groceries, fuel, liquor, fresh produce, butchery and deli outlets. With supermarkets and essential businesses as busy as they were during the height of the pandemic, GaP Solutions were very well placed to cater for their increased demand. It also gave them the opportunity to focus on their internal operations, ensuring they emerged stronger. They also launched an online store to keep their business growing in 2020.

Another tech company located in my local area is Melrose Park business Dematec Automation. Dematec Automation is a multidisciplinary engineering company specialising in integrated systems, including industrial automation and robotics. They have been delivering projects and supporting systems from Melrose Park in all parts of Australia as well as internationally since 1990. Having visited Dematec with Minister Pisoni recently, we saw and heard firsthand some of the incredible innovative platforms that this business is using, and they are saving other companies tens of thousands of dollars in electricity costs due to their innovation. It is just incredible.

These are just a few examples of many local businesses and the people who run them that are enriching our local area and contributing to strengthening and growing our local economy. To all the local businesses in my area and all the businesses across South Australia that have used innovative methods recently to overcome challenges, I sincerely thank each and every one of them for their strength, their energy, their commitment and their dedication to their business, their employees, their local community and to our great state.