South Canterbury's meat processing companies are ramping up for the season.
Silver Fern Farms' plant at Pareora is operating near full capacity, while Alliance Smithfield has been processing deer and is looking to start sheep and lamb processing soon.
Pareora plant manager Bruce McNaught said
new people were being trained and existing staff upskilled into key roles in readiness for processing ahead of the Christmas period.
''We are continuing a recruitment drive to bring on additional processing capability for when we ramp up sheepmeat processing towards the end of November,'' he said.