Marian O'Leary of Melbourne-based packaging company RollsPack has been named Young Achiever 2019 at the Mebourne Business Awards – South East Region.
The Bob Gawne Young Achiever Award, named in honour of long-serving Melbourne Business Award supporter and youth mentor Bob Gawne, aims to identify and promote young people who are making a significant contribution to the company where they are employed.
This year's recipient, Marian O'Leary, has worked at flexible packaging specialist RollsPack for close on two years and her career aspirations are to play an active part in the development and implementation of sustainable packaging, particularly in the food packaging industry.
“Marian has proved to be a critical part of our Quality Assurance and production quality controls, both for our locally made goods and overseas made products," said MD of RollsPack, Phillip Rolls.
“We have sponsored Marian in completing her Diploma in Food Packaging through the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), which will provide her with an in-depth understanding of packaging process and materials for the future, which will be a period of fabulous experiences in this new digital era of technological change,” Rolls said.
"Studying for her Diploma together with industry experience she is exposed to will provide a strong foundation that she can build on to help develop environmentally friendly packaging that is also financially sound."
The most significant contribution Marian has made to RollsPack is leading the company on the way to obtaining a food-grade certification (FSSC 22000). This is an international food safety standard that would increase the visibility of RollsPack's food safety practices, as well as accountability for the company's internal processes to ensure it is producing consistently good quality and food-safe packaging.
Preparing for this certification has involved working with the production team to establish and improve internal quality auditing systems, rewriting the hazard analysis plans for the site (leading to improved visibility and control of food safety risks and vulnerabilities), the introduction of a cleaning regime for the manufacturing floor and introduction of approved contractor programs.
