Waitara meat plant aiming for $100m in exports

A Japanese-New Zealand consortium will invest $20 million to convert the old Waitara freezing works site into a state-of-the-art meat processing plant.

Anzco Foods, the parent company of Eltham-based meat company Riverlands, has formed a 50-50 joint venture company with Itoham Food, Japan's second-largest meats manufacturer and distribution company.

Itoham is the biggest shareholder in Anzco, which is one of New Zealand's biggest companies, with annual sales of almost $900 million.

The new company will trade as Itoham New Zealand Ltd and manufacture more than 20,000 tonnes of processed meat products a year, including beef patties, salamis, beef jerky and sausages. Work on building a 3000sq m complex on the 5ha site would begin next month and exports were likely to start in September, said Anzco chairman Graeme Harrison, of Christchurch.

He said in New Plymouth that 70 new jobs would be created by the end of next year.

Recruitment and training would start about the middle of the year.

Unemployment in Waitara is running at nearly 15 per cent - almost three times the national average - and New Plymouth Mayor Peter Tennent was pleased by the new plant.

"This is great for Waitara. We're thrilled to welcome this company to the district," he said.

The new processed foods business expects to be generating export earnings of $100 million a year by the end of 2006 and might expand beyond that.

Originally the company was looking at a South Island site, but the success of the Eltham-based Riverlands plant had been a significant factor in opting for Waitara, Mr Harrison said. Anzco Foods and Itoham Foods have a long history of working together. In 1989 they jointly established Five Star Beef and in 1991 opened New Zealand's only large-scale cattle feedlot in Mid-Canterbury. Anzco has a network of marketing offices in Japan, the US, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and Belgium.

- NZPA