COMMERCIAL Dalgety N.Z. expects to double profit

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33959, 27 September 1975, Page 18

COMMERCIAL Dalgety N.Z. expects to double profit

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND

Dalgety N.Z., Ltd. expects a big turnover in profit this year. “We’d be disappointed if we cannot at least double the past year’s profit of sl.2m, but that would still be less than half the 1973-74 result of $5.4m,” the chairman (Mr L. M. Papps) said before the company’s first board meeting in Auckland.

Higher beef and' wool support prices, will make farmers better-off, and the company should be earning considerably more, he said. Losses by Tasman Vaccine Laboratories, Ltd, and Aotearoa Meats, Ltd, each of several hundreds of thousands of dollars, were partly responsible for the 77.3 per cent fall in group net profit last year. In the case of T.V.L. the loss was caused by several new development projects, such as the treatment of effluent from freezing works. Some of these had been abandoned or shelved. Dalgety New Zealand was

now the leader in maize growing here. It saw big overseas markets for maize, and was spending “hundreds of thousands” on the development of the maize industry, he said. Trials with soyabeans near Gisborne had been marginally successful, only mainly because insufficient land had been available. However, the company would develop this progressively. A new white lupin variety, with a higher protein content than soyabeans, could have a substantial place in the feedstock market. Trial crops had been successful. Both T.V.L., and Aotearoa were now again earning healthy profits, Mr Papps said. A very costly exercise — “but one that is going to pay off” — was the development of new animal feedstuffs (an Australian discovery) which would lead to the production of polyunsaturated dairy produce, and meat.

Dalgety New Zealand is in a joint-venture in Canada, and its Lower Hutt plant

was supplying the feedstuff for trial ventures in the United Kingdom, United States, South Africa, Sweden, and other countries.

Japan was also very interested in this because the new feed considerably increased the butterfat content in milk from animals normally raised on dry feeds, the managing director of Dalgety New Zealand (Mr D. C. MacDougal) said.

“We can see diversification into cash crops but we are also looking for expansion possibilities outside the rural activities,” Mr MacDougal said. The aim was to get half of the profit from nonrural activities, he said. Stock and station agents had too much money tied up in farming, and were happy to see the Rual Bank take over the long-term lending, but Dalgety New Zealand would provide working-capi-tal to farmers. Further rationalisation of wool handling could be achieved, after the sharing of facilities with WrightsonN.M.A. in Auckland, and Wellington, Mr Papps said.