Supermarkets around the world are selling Anchor milk and Fernleaf butter that is not produced on New Zealand farms.

Fonterra's not-so-little brother, Westland Milk, says it's sticking with its co-operative model.

Maori-controlled, with a Vietnamese connection, one of the country's newest dairy companies does things a little bit differently from the big boys, discovers Jamie Gray.

With the rapid adoption of modern farming technologies, agriculture is an increasingly important part of the economy, writes John Wilson.

Dairy giant to pick up the premium it has so far left on the table, writes Fran O'Sullivan.

Prices of dairy products have surged to a record in Fonterra's latest global online auction as traders competed for a shrinking volume of drought-affected milk powder.

Led by dairy products, prices for export commodities surged last month - and this time the rise in world prices was not eaten up by a higher exchange rate.

Goodman Property Trust could own the new $60 million to $80 million Fonterra headquarters to be built near Auckland's waterfront.

The onset of drought conditions in the North Island has seen economic confidence plummet in many regions, according to a Westpac McDermott Miller survey.

Fletcher Building and Goodman Group are planning a $500 million four- to five-building commercial office precinct near Auckland's waterfront, a boss involved in the deal says.

A West Coast farming expert says he is seeing first-hand the pressures being put on farmers battling to combat the effects of the big dry.

Dairy giant Fonterra has launched a "world-first" bottle that it says will protect milk from light and keep it fresher and tasting better for longer.

The drought gripping most of the country is hitting dairy farmers hard, but soaring export prices will partially offset lost production, economists say.

Prices of dairy products surged to the highest in two years in Fonterra's latest Global Dairy Trade auction as drought curtails production in the North Island.

One of the unwritten skills in the job description for being Fonterra's director for Latin America is a tolerance for those important local business lubricants, aguardiente and tequila.

Kids at Kamo Primary School at the northern end of Whangarei are split down the middle over an offer of free milk from New Zealand's biggest company, Fonterra.

The drought is working its way down the country, and with with no change predicted until at least mid-March, farmers from Northland to Southland are suffering.

Big dry forces stock selloffs, but Aucklanders can still water gardens, wash cars thanks to Waikato River supplies

World dairy prices have surged to the highest since June 2011 with the prospect of New Zealand production curtailed by drought.

The mystery of how 165kg of cocaine was slipped into a New Zealand shipping container of milk powder remains unsolved, according to an official report.

Testing for a toxic agricultural substance in New Zealand dairy products has found no traces of it after mid-November last year.

The hot dry summer in the North Island is helping to push world dairy prices up - but the high kiwi dollar is taking the cream off the top.

In the fifth straight gain, prices in the latest world dairy auction rose 3.1 per cent overnight, takings prices to their highest level in five months.

Fonterra Cooperative Group, the world's biggest dairy exporter, is playing down reports that China's quarantine administration destroyed three different New Zealand brands of milk powder as being nothing out of the ordinary and part of a regular review.