From Kitchen Scraps to Career Pathways: How One Gosford Business Is Reshaping the Coast's Job Market

Coastline Organics has hired its 34th employee since January. That number matters on the Central Coast right now, because almost nobody else in the region's small-to-medium business sector is growing headcount at the same pace.

The Gosford-based operation collects food scraps from more than 60 restaurants and cafes between Terrigal and Tuggerah, processes the material at a composting facility off Manns Road in Narara, and sells the finished product to farms and urban gardens across the region. The model is not new — similar operations have been quietly expanding in regional NSW for the past two years — but the speed of Coastline's growth, and the type of jobs it is creating, is drawing attention from the Central Coast Regional Development Corporation.

Australia's broader jobs picture is softening. The national unemployment rate edged up to 4.3 per cent in May, and economists tracking the Reserve Bank's rate decisions have flagged that demand-side pressure on the labour market is easing faster than the RBA anticipated. On the Central Coast, that broader cooling is showing up in retail and hospitality, two sectors that employed a significant slice of the region's 110,000-strong workforce through the post-pandemic surge. Coastline's expansion cuts against that grain.

The Jobs Coastline Is Actually Creating

The work on offer is not glamorous. Drivers start at $29.50 an hour, above the national minimum wage of $24.10 that took effect on 1 July. Processing-floor roles sit between $31 and $34 an hour, depending on shift and certification. The company has partnered with TAFE NSW's Ourimbah campus to run a 12-week certificate course in waste management and sustainable operations, with eight places reserved for Coastline recruits each intake. Three cohorts have completed the course since March 2025.

What makes the model interesting to labour economists is the pipeline. Coastline has a memorandum of understanding with Central Coast Council's economic development unit to trial a supported employment stream for long-term jobseekers — defined as anyone who has been out of work for more than six months. Seventeen of the 34 employees hired this year came through that stream, most of them referred by the Wyong Employment Zone, a Jobs and Skills Australia-listed employment services hub on Pacific Highway in Wyong.

Central Coast's unemployment rate sat at 5.1 per cent in the March quarter, above the state average of 4.0 per cent, according to the National Skills Commission's regional labour market data published in April. Youth unemployment — those aged 15 to 24 — was running at 11.4 per cent, a figure that has barely shifted since mid-2024 despite strong overall employment growth in Greater Sydney.

What Comes Next for the Model

Coastline's founder is not the only one watching the experiment. The Central Coast Regional Development Corporation confirmed in June that it has shortlisted three businesses — Coastline among them — for a $250,000 grant under the NSW Government's Regional Job Creation Fund, with decisions expected before the end of August. That funding, if it comes through, would allow the company to open a second processing site, likely in the Somersby industrial corridor, and take on a further 15 to 20 workers by mid-2027.

The practical lesson for other Central Coast employers is straightforward: structured training partnerships with institutions like TAFE NSW Ourimbah reduce turnover, which cuts recruitment costs. Coastline's 90-day staff retention rate is 87 per cent, against an industry average closer to 60 per cent for entry-level logistics roles, according to figures the company supplied to the Regional Development Corporation as part of its grant application.

For jobseekers, the Wyong Employment Zone is the first point of contact — the office is open Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 4.30pm. The next TAFE intake tied to the Coastline program starts 28 July, with applications closing 18 July. No prior qualifications are required for the processing-floor pathway, only a valid driver's licence for those applying to the collections team.

The region's job market has enough headwinds — softening retail, a property sector sitting on its hands — that a single growing business is not a solution. But Coastline is proof the Coast still has operators willing to build something, and willing to hire locally while they do it.