New Zealand's biggest meat company expects the incoming horde of carnivorous rugby fans to sink their teeth into an extra 70,000 of its sheep, cattle and deer during the World Cup.

Kiwi food-processing expertise is making inroads in a growing range of overseas markets.

Australia has suspended shipments of live cattle to 11 Indonesian abattoirs after footage of animal cruelty was released.

Te Aroha locals are supporting the families of workers who lost their jobs when the local meatworks went up in flames.

'They're calling it a seasonal lay-off which is bull,' a worker at Silver Fern Farm's fire-hit Te Aroha factory says.

About 160 of the 350 workers at Silver Fern Farms' Waikato beef slaughter plant at Te Aroha are likely to only be paid a minimum wage until Christmas.

The 200 workers left jobless after a massive fire gutted a Waikato freezing works remain cautiously optimistic.

Sparks from a contractor's saw are believed to have ignited the fire that gutted a Waikato freezing works.

The beef processing plant badly damaged by fire at Te Aroha, near Hamilton, overnight may be rebuilt into a world-class plant, owner Silver Fern Farms says.

Photos from the fire at the Silver Fern Farms freezing works in Te Aroha, Waikato.

A spokesman for the New Zealand Jewish community has defended the animal-killing practice of shechita.