The news, when it was delivered to workers yesterday, was the harshest of blows for Waipukurau and Hawke's Bay.
Meat processor Ovation's boning facility is to close. Three hundred jobs will be lost.
Ovation is the fancy new name for what was Bernard Matthews, which shed 175 jobs this time last year.
Workers
were yesterday told the company was "entering a period of consultation" about a "proposal" to cease operations at Waipukurau.
"Proposal" and "consultation" are HR-speak for closure and redundancy. A process has to be followed by law but the tone of the company announcement yesterday left little doubt - permanent and seasonal employees expect to be told their jobs are gone on June 29.
The Waipukurau boning plant is in seasonal shutdown and is now not expected to reopen. The work will go to Feilding.
A small amount of employment will remain at Waipukurau at Ovation's retail and catering portion control operation and in storage and logistics, although these will be downsized.
Changing tastes, declining lamb numbers and an isolated plant have effectively done for the Waipukurau operation, says Ovation.
North Island lamb kill numbers have fallen from 11.6 million in 2007/08 to an estimated 8.6 million in 2010/11, says the company. And consumers want chilled lamb, not the frozen products Waipukurau was designed to produce.
Cold comfort if you are one of the hundreds of meatworkers with families staring at redundancy. Or one of the many retailers who sell goods to those workers and their families.
The greater Waipukurau area will now experience inevitable aftershocks. There will be population loss as skilled workers move their families to where the work is. There will be a surge in people on the unemployment benefit. There will be hardship and stress.
Perhaps there was little the company could do to further postpone this day of reckoning but today in Waipukurau there will be no cheer at the mention of Ovation.
