Unilever will close Chch factory

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34100, 12 March 1976, Page 1

Unilever will close Chch factory

Unilever (New Zealand), Ltd, announced yesterday that its Christchurch frozen foods factory — processing mainly peas and beans under the Birds Eye brand name — would close at the end of April.

About 27 permanent staff at the Harewood Road factory had been offered other positions, either with J. Wattie Canneries, Ltd. in Christchurch or in other Unilever plants.

The Christchurch factory’s closing was part of Unilever’s plan to withdraw from its present frozen food and icecream manufacturing in New Zealand under the Birds Eye and Walls brand names, the company chairman (Mr J. S. Taggart) said.

The company would expand dehydrated foods production for local and export markets. Mr Taggart said that closing of the Christchurch factory had been seen as inevitable for some time.

The factory manager (Mr J. O. Sykes) said the factory would see the bean harvest through to its conclusion.

and all brussels sprouts contracts would be honoured by Watties, who have offered contracts for next season to all growers in the Canterbury area who supplied vegetables to Unilever this season.

Watties is the only other frozen vegetable processor in the Canterbury area. It is understood that about 25 beangrowers and up to 60 peagrowers have been supplying vegetables to the Christchurch factory. Mr Sykes said there would be “basically no difference” in Watties contracts.

The chairman of the process section of the Canterbury Growers’ Society (Mr L. G. Eder) said that growers would be satisfied if they were offered Watties contracts that covered the same area and prices.

Referring to the Christchurch factory, Mr Taggart said: “The buildings are old, and much of the processing plant is nearing the end of its useful life. Moreover, the small size of the site, and its residential zoning classification, make it unsuitable for development.”

In addition to the transfer of staff and contracts, Unilever had agreed to sell Watties some plant items—mainly harvesting and blanching equipment—and some bulk stocks of vegetables surplus to Unilever’s requirements.

The company’s Motueka factory would continue normal work because it had been processing mainly dehydrated vegetables and fruit for some time.

But the company’s main food factory at Hastings, which processes both frozen and dehydrated foods, would be affected by the decision. Job assurance Its main vegetable crop — peas — would not be affected, and the company would try to increase its seasonal pea Intake. But requirements for some other vegetables would be reduced or eliminated. Mr Taggart said. Continued processing of some frozen foods for local third parties and export markets. along with the expansion in dehydrated foods, should keep labour redundancies to a minimum, he added Unilever was already negotiating the sale of its Auckland and Palmerston North ice cream factories to the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Company. Ltd. a big dairy company already distributing ice cream.

Mr Taggart said that sustaining frozen food processing at present levels “would require substantial capital investment in both production facilities and refrigerated storage investment which could not be economically justified in the light of past returns and projected future returns from these operations.’’ More exports Mr Taggart said the rationalisation plan should not adversely affect the company’s export turnover — $3.4m in 1975 — because that represented mainly dehydrated foods and detergents. He was confident that the company’s export earning capacity would be increased, since the release of funds from frozen foods and ice cream would enable more investment in the modernisation and expansion of factories in other areas. Unilever shares are not listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange.