Ziwi Ltd's Mount Maunganui plant has been at the centre of odour complaints in recent years. Photo / George Novak
Ziwi Ltd's Mount Maunganui plant has been at the centre of odour complaints in recent years. Photo / George Novak
A major pet food exporter that has attracted complaints of emitting "putrid" and "foul" odours from its Mount Maunganui factory says it still plans to leave Tauranga next year despite applying for a new 20-year consent.
Ziwi Ltd applied to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council for a 20-year resourceconsent to discharge contaminants into the air - namely odour that has been deemed offensive and objectionable.
The application, made in July last year and now out for public submissions, was a condition of an Environment Court ruling according to the application, but Ziwi also says it was the result of a change in district plan rules.
The company has processing sites in Mount Maunganui, including a Boeing Place site operating since 2002, and in Canterbury.
It makes air-dried pet food from frozen meat, offal, minerals and seafood, employing about 60 people and contributing about $12 million a year to the local economy.
In a 170-page assessment of environmental effects with Ziwi's application, environmental consultants Golder said much of the company's process was considered to create a negligible odour "not out of character for an industrial zone".
Ziwi pet food's Mount Maunganui plant has been at the centre of odour complaints in recent years, which have triggered the need for permission to continue operating. Photo / George Novak
From October 2019 to the end of May 2020, the regional council received 400 complaints about odour from the Ziwi site. This followed work done in October 2019 by Ziwi to help mitigate the odour emissions.
Most complaints came from industrial and residential areas to the north and east of Ziwi and six complainants generated half of all the complaints.
Complaints described the odour as "foul", "rotten", and "decay" but the report found the "ambient odours" were considered dominated by meaty, biscuit, fatty and cooked meat odours.
"It is noted that the community and on odd occasions, Bay of Plenty Regional Council staff, provide descriptions such as putrid, foul, rotten meat and similar descriptions that indicate an inherently more unpleasant odour from Ziwi," Golder said in the report.
The report said investigations after the complaints found no occasions of objectionable or offensive odours, compared with 5 per cent of investigations pre-October 2019 finding objectionable or offensive odours.
"These findings indicate that chronic odour exposure is probably the primary odour issue and mechanism for causing annoyance, which is frequent complaints from the local industrial community."
The report said Ziwi was working to better control the release of odour from its site and planned to do more work in that area.
Golder found the odour was mostly acceptable to an average reasonable person but someone subject to it frequently would become sensitised to the point where the effects would be unacceptable.
Golder found adverse effects from the odour emissions were minor and best addressed through improvements and modifications.
Its report said the continuation of the plant would have positive economic effects.
The regional council questioned Ziwi's "heavy reliance" on its staff for its odour surveys as they may be desensitised to the odours.
Ziwi said the staff were appropriately trained and it had no evidence their ratings were skewed, also claiming that odour intensity observations by council staff - which did not match Ziwi's - were skewed.
In August last year, Ziwi announced it was relocating its Mount Maunganui operation to a new facility in Napier.
In November the company was fined $66,000 in the Environment Court over offensive odours from its Mount Maunganui operations, followed by a $64,000 fine in February over discharges into the stormwater system. The company apologised to the community.
Asked why the company was applying for a 20-year consent if it was leaving Mount Maunganui, Ziwi managing director Richard Lawrence told the Bay of Plenty Times the move was still planned.
"Ziwi has made a [half a million dollar] mitigation investment in minimising odour discharge, and when it started the consent application in 2018 it felt prudent to apply for a 20-year consent.
"However, a shorter consent period could be considered due to the operation shifting to a $85m state-of the-art production kitchen in Napier (Awatoto) from early 2022.
"Ziwi is planning to close its Mount Maunganui kitchen, following the opening of the Napier kitchen, during 2022."
The consent application was publicly notified at Ziwi's request. Submissions close June 18.
Ziwi neighbour: 'It's not really a thing anymore'
Mount Metal Craft managing director Craig "Fitzy" Fitzgerald told the Bay of Plenty Times when he first arrived at the business' Boeing Place location, near Ziwi's site, two years ago "you could really smell it".
"But it's not really a thing anymore. [Ziwi] have done a lot of work and are still doing a lot of work in reducing it."
Fitzgerald said he might still pick up on a "roast" type smell every couple of weeks.
"You walk outside and smell it and go 'oh yep, they've got the ovens on'."
