Editorial: Graeme Lowe a good man

As I remember it, there wasn't much to Dawn Meat when I started work there in 1976.

A plain two-storey office on Eastbourne St, with the factory cafeteria and small changing rooms attached behind. Driveways down either side of the buildings. A parking area directly across the road.

Behind was a tin fence dividing the buildings from the courtyard on which there was a shed on the left-hand corner, a few bins housing boned-out beef ribs, cartons and other waste from the butchery operation. To the right as you headed towards the main factory were a smallgoods operation, chillers, with a built-on ladder in a bay leading to overhead storage areas where stores were kept, and hung-over workers caught a few zeds.

Through heavy swinging metal doors was the time clock to punch in, fat rendering tubs leading through to a ham curing area - hot metal tubs, a smoker. Off to the right was the foreman's office, another smallgoods area, the boning room, a small freezer, and machinery such as a bandsaw, a giant mincer, a sausage-maker and a hamburger machine.

Up the front on Heretaunga St was the butcher's shop.

That is how I remember it - and great people.

That factory was my workplace every holidays from 1976 to early 1982. It provided the money that put me through university, as it did for my brother, and the likes of John Macpherson (Advintage owner) and Mike O'Leary (highly decorated Eastern police officer).

More importantly that crowded set of buildings was also the starting point of the empire Graeme Lowe built.

I couldn't say that the work conditions were of the union-standard I later experienced at Tomoana. But there was a bonhomie at Dawn. It was a place with a get-it-done attitude. It had always been like that.

In the late 1960s my father had made the decision to leave Whakatu Freezing Works after 25 years and head over to this new kid on the block.

It was almost as if a pioneering spirit was driving the company, with all hands on deck, including Mr Lowe pushing meat out of chillers to the boning room.

Dad's all-round skills were suited to the needs of the company which was obviously going places, and at that time he had the utmost respect for the skills and drive of his employer; a man of big physique and ambition.

In the more than 40 years since, Mr Lowe established himself as an industry leader, an innovator, and ultimately, a generous philanthropist.

Even Parkinson's disease could not dim his passion for business. It was only just that he was in the first induction into the Hawke's Bay Business Hall of Fame, which was the last occasion I spoke to him, and just a few weeks ago was added to the NZ Business Hall of Fame.

A figure of national importance in the meat and associated industries, an entrepreneur who gave business a good name, a man who leaves of legacy of good deeds. All of that from a butcher's shop on a block between Eastbourne St and Heretaunga St. Graeme Lowe, RIP.