Bostock Brothers chicken farm in Hawke's Bay has been sold to Inghams. Photo / Bostock Brothers
By Sally Murphy of RNZ
The country’s only organic chicken farm has been sold to industry giant Inghams.
Hawke’s Bay-based Bostock Brothers were on the lookout for capital to grow the business but decided to sell the whole operation.
The company started a decade ago when Ben and George Bostock started raising chickens in the family’s apple orchards.
Ben Bostock said that after 10 years of developing the brand and a growing business, they couldn’t keep up with demand.
“Sales were doing really well, we were short on supply and we had more demand than we could keep up with but like all things, especially recently, to be sustainable you need scale, so we started looking for capital and it became an option to hand the baton over to someone else,” he said.
“With all the rules and regulations in New Zealand it’s really tough to run a small business and we were still very small, with a million birds, that’s less than 1% of the national flock.
“But we’re really excited Inghams have taken over the business, they’ve not only bought the business they’ve bought into the whole philosophy of organic farming; they’re taking on the whole blueprint of how we designed the farm, with large roaming areas for the chickens and smaller flock densities.”
The brothers will remain involved in the business. Ben will grow all the organic maize for feed while George will remain involved in the actual chicken farming.
He said that now, being under Inghams, the company will be able to grow.
“It’s really exciting to have Inghams down in the Hawke’s Bay, at the moment Bostock Brothers employs about 75 people but Inghams has big plans to double the production which means more jobs and it’s good for the contractors who will build the new farms.”
Inghams spokeswoman Caroline Hayes said the company was excited to be involved in organic chicken farming.
“We’ve looked at Bostock for a long time, being the only organic producer in New Zealand, it was a business we were always interested in.”
Hayes said buying the business meant Inghams had organic, its free-range Waitoa brand and also its barn-raised SPCA certified status.
“In many ways, we’re keeping the Bostock business as it exists today so the operations will continue in Hawke’s Bay from farming to plant and processing, the team will remain the same.
“We’re really excited for what the future holds.”
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