KEY POINTS:
To an outsider, the retiring chief executive of Otago meat company PPCS is a hard man in an industry known for tough individuals.
But behind Stewart Barnett's gruff, prickly exterior is a shy personable man with a wicked sense of humour.
For example, when the 63-year-old learned former All Black skipper Taine Randell was leaving Otago without a fitting send-off, he organised a farewell function for one of the province's most loyal servants.
Typically, not many people know that, but that is how the head of one of country's largest companies likes to operate - in the background without public accolades.
That has helped create Barnett's impression of being cold, gruff and prickly.
Those who know him use adjectives such as tough but also liberally sprinkle sentences with terms such as fair, loyal, dedicated, decisive, honest, intelligent, his own man and integrity.
His personality suited a difficult era for the meat industry. It needed strong leadership as companies failed, plants were closed and the Government hinted it would nationalise the industry.
PPCS also needed decisive leadership as it made the transition from a meat marketer, contracting other plants to process stock on its behalf, to a processor-marketer.
Those who know him describe him as a thinker, with an unmatched knowledge of the meat industry, and that when he makes up his mind he sticks to that view, even if it means bruising a few egos.
The one time he did step into a public spat was over the gushing treatment by politicians and the media of Fortex, the young upstart meat company that was showered with plaudits and awards while existing companies were derided as ancient and inefficient.
He was particularly angry that the Dunedin City Council offered Fortex rates relief to build a plant on the Taieri plains and publicly said so.
When Fortex collapsed Barnett reputedly said: "Dinosaurs one, Fortex nil."
Barnett's prudent management contributed to PPCS becoming the giant among meat companies, with annual turnover of $2 billion.
While other companies were collapsing or being bailed out by shareholders and banks, PPCS avoided the fall-out, instead picking up the pieces and slowly expanding to the point where today it owns 24 processing plants.
It wasn't a case of opportunism, but part of a business plan for PPCS to grow and to improve the viability of the industry for farmers.
The purchase of two operating plants from the failed Fortex and Waitaki companies and three others that were closed was seamless.
The foray to initially take a stake in, then buy outright, the publicly listed Hawkes Bay meat company Richmond proved a long and nasty battle.
Some refer to it as a battle between Dunedin's tartan mafia and the Hawkes Bay aristocracy, but it turned hostile with questions and accusations raised about PPCS's conduct during the takeover and attacks on Barnett's honesty and integrity, which he took personally.
Barnett maintains he did nothing wrong, was not deceitful and that at all times acted in the best interests of farmers.
Buying Richmond was a strategic move to extend PPCS's lamb kill season, provide a better balance between sheep and beef processing but also to ensure lamb quota access to the key European market remained in the hands of NZ farmers.
Barnett described the old meat industry as commercially immature, brought about by decades of political interference.
It wasn't until 1985-86 when then trade minister Mike Moore handed marketing from the Meat Board to companies that they were able to develop commercial structures.
"From then on we effectively had to set a commercial path. The industry will continue to evolve."
Barnett's own development has taken him from stock agent in Canterbury to chief executive.
His working career started in 1960 as a stock agent for Dalgetys, a position he said was considered, along with banking, as an excellent training ground for young people.
In 1972 he joined PPCS as a prime-lamb drafter in Alexandra.
At that time PPCS was a small lamb marketing co-operative that contracted other processors to kill its stock, and was handling fewer than one million lambs a year.
Barnett said he was attracted by the fact it was owned by farmers, an ownership structure he still passionately believes in.
"It allows farmers to retain ownership of the product through to markets and to get feedback on what processors require and want.
"Otherwise, an overseas owned company will only tell farmers what they need to know and farmers become a supplier to a processor."
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
