Wrightson enters the fast lane for spuds

By Yoke Har Lee

Rural services company Wrightson has acquired exclusive rights to specialist technology from Potex of Britain that would give it the know-how to speed propagation of new strains of potato.

The technology, bought for an undisclosed sum, is exclusive to the company for Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, says Roy Cail, general manager of the market integration unit.

Chief executive Greg Kay said the acquisition was a further step in Wrightson's aim to be a force in producing and supplying seed and fresh potatoes.

In New Zealand 250,000 tonnes of potatoes are consumed a year; in Australia, 1.2 million tonnes.

"This technology allows us to enter the marketplace faster, allows us to take the genetics and multiply it much faster," Mr Cail said.

"Typically you go through five generations of seeds before it is sufficiently multiplied.

Wrightson hopes to use the technology to boost its market integration business, popularly known as supply chain management, set up a year ago under the Wrightson Technologies division.

The market integration unit's role is to enter into contracts with food and fibre processors and marketers to provide reliable and consistent supplies.

The Potex technology, which Mr Cail declined to describe, is believed to be the fastest and lowest-cost system for multiplying large quantities of new seed materials. Competing technologies are being used in Australia.

Last December, Wrightson acquired Eurogrow, a Christchurch business with more than 25 per cent of the New Zealand seed potato market and exclusive rights to material from two leaders in potato genetics, Agrico and Hettema of the Netherlands.

The Eurogrow investment led to the company producing its own potato brand, Golden Potatoes.