New Chathams Meat Export Plant

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 8

New Chathams Meat Export Plant

An abattoir and meat export packing house have begun operations in the Chatham Islands. About $200,000 has been invested in the project.

The Chatham Islands Meat Company, Ltd, which runs the plant, is wholly farmer owned but a large part of the finance has been provided through the State Advances Corporation and the Meat Board has given a bank guarantee to provide working capital.

The plant is located about four miles from Waitangi on the road to Owenga, and is on an area of 230 acres owned by the company. Mr C. S. Stevens, governing director of C. S. Stevens and Company, whose firm is acting as consultants to the Chathams company and is marketing agent for its produce, said this week the effect of the new plant on farming in the islands could be similar - to that of the introduction of the frozen meat industry in New Zealand late in the last century. The Chathams company was formed about three years ago to take over the Te Awatea abattoir which was on the site of the present plant and Mr Stevens's company was recommended by the Department of Agriculture to the State Advances Corporation to look into the feasibility of the present project. The Christchurch company has been involved in the preparation of plans for the plant and arrangement of the necessary finance for the project The farmers in the islands have themselves put about $40,000 of the capital and the bulk of the rest of the finance has come from the State Advances Corporation and the Meat Board guarantee. The Government, Department of Agriculture and other Government services have cooperated in the enterprise. Mr Stevens said that Mr D. L Mac Gibbon, who had recently retired from the employ of the Canterbury Bye Products Company, had been appointed consulting engineer tn the company and he had planned the works in consultation with the Department of Agriculture to the department’s standards. In the early days of the planning, in particular, much interest bad

been shown and assistance given by the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company and the New Zealand Refrigerating Company. The plant will be- able to handle between 2000 and 3000 sheep a week and up to 100 head of cattle. It will initially have a staff of about 10. Two house* have been built and single men's quarters and cooking, lounge and recreational facilities have been provided for another eight men. The company has had to recruit skilled staff from the mainland.

In the past, Mr Stevens said, island farmers had derived most of their income from wool, and because of the cost of transport of stock to the mainland they had been forced to send only the best of their stock, which had not been in the interests of flock improvement. Mr S. J. S. Barker, a director of the Chathams Meat Company, said this week that the position had been reached where costs of selling stock at Addington were up to $3.30 a head, including commission, cartage and all other charges. About 18 months ago, he said, the Government had withdrawn the subsidy on shipping of livestock. The company will not initially be looking at the slaughter of lambs but will be dealing with the big backlog of old sheep that should have been slaughtered much earlier.

Mr Stevens said that all production would be boned out to a particular specification and it was hoped that a market for beef would be developed on the New Zealand mainland at the time of the year when domestic supplies were short. The export of mutton would be aimed at the Pacific Islands and Asian markets.

But the company will face some disadvantages compared with mainland companies in export markets on the score of high transport costs. The cost of getting refrigerated cargo from the Chathams to Lyttelton is about 2.4619 c per lb includ ing freight, the Chathams county rate and wharfage, and on top of this there will be extra storage and transport costs before the produce can be shipped overseas. These.

could bring the total to 3.4619 c per lb.

This compares with a rate of only 3.145 c per lb from any New Zealand port to any Japanese port. Similarly on general cargo—and the company will have such commodities as hides and woolly skins ,in this category—the rate-from the Chathams to New Zealand, including county rate and wharfage, is about $36 a ton, whereas the freight rate from New Zealand to Japan for meat and bone meal is about $20.24 a ton. Because of these costs, Mr Stevens said, the company would not be able to treat some offals and bye-products as they would be handled on the mainland. But in spite of these additional charges the Chathams company would have to face, Mr Stevens said the Chatham* farmers would be much better off than they were before the works were established, both financially and because they wonld have killing facilities available at all times. In 10 years or so, Mr Stevens said, it was conceivable that the plant could grow to the stage of being a properly equipped freezing works of about the size of the works at Nelsou. Mr Stevens said that the company would be seeking ways of extending its killing facilities to take in Pitt Island, across Pitt Strait, where there were also considerable numbers of stock The company has been delegated the local abbattoir authority and will be providing both wholesale and retail services in meat and small goods to local residents and members of the fishing fleets operating in the islands.

A Department of Agriculture meat inspector is already on the islands.

Mr Stevens paid a tribute to Mr P. A. Smith, who was responsible for the establishment of the original abattoir. Without the interest he had shown in this project, Mr Stevens said, it was probsble that the present installation might have still been a long way away.

“We have got a wonderful little plant for a relatively small outlay,” Mr Barker said this week in commenting on the project. Asked this week whether a service for livestock between the Chathams and New Zealand would still be provided now that an abbattoir would be in operation iu the islands, a representative of Holm and Company Ltd, said it would really be up to the island farmers themselves—whether they wanted i* or not 1