Wattie sees prospects for growth in Gisborne

Press, 14 March 1978, Page 22

Wattie sees prospects for growth in Gisborne

The board of directors of | Wattie Industries, Ltd, has made a special visit to Gis-i borne to inspect recent in-j vestments by the company, in the region, and to consider proposals for further] expansion. In a speech to the Gis-I borne Rotary Club, the man-] aging director of Wattie In-] dustries (Mr G. J. Wattie) outlined the company’s plans for further investment in and around Gisborne. "New Zealand devel-1 'opment must continue, and; 'here in Gisborne we can see what can occur in an industry over a period of 25 years. “In that period production has increased from 1000 tonnes in the first year, to 50,000 tonnes this year, involving assets that total more than $25.0M and wages of $4.5M, a year.

“In Gisborne’s case there is still much potential for our company,” Mr Wattie said.

Development will proceed at Gisborne in three main areas: The first of these is the enlargement of existing horticultural processing. Wattie has plans to greatly extend the capacity of the plant to handle sweetcorn, which is a major export product. Half of Watties production is exported. Even without the planned additions, the Gisborne sweetcorn line is

I the largest in the world, out-il side the United States. h i Tomato products received i |a major boost in Gisborne]! with the introduction of! machine harvesting and new , varieties. These have been,; , developed at the group’s L agricultural research station || in Havelock North, and byi, ; field-staff. The installation |] prior to last season of a to- ' ( mato evaporator increased!] processing capacity tremen-! jdously, Mr Wattie said. In the citrus juice field, as! l ! the yield from citrus or-1 • chards increase, so will the ' - group’s production. “We be- ' > lieve the citrus industry has a good future in New Zeai land, and we are continuing ) our work in the development > of new products,” he said. The second major field of 1 expansion is in the meat > business. In conjunction ]with Mr Peter Egan, Wattie

Industries has formed Ad- t vanced Meats, Ltd, which; will operate at the Gisborne' City Abattoirs. Much has been said about 1 the need to further process! !New Zealand meat to give it! !added value on export marIkets. Much has also been said about the cost of sendling thousands of tonnes of bone to Northern ! hemisphere markets. Advanced Meats intends Ito get over both these problems by further processing of the "meat and its boning prior to export. At the same time, it will supply J. Wattie Canneries with much of its meat requirements, a growing section of business. The third major area for development for Wattie Canneries in Gisborne is the fishing business. In the last

year, the company purchased a large purse seiner Janet D which has been extensively upgraded and modernised. The Marine Countess was enlarged during the year, and these two purse seiners are ideal for the exploitation of New Zealand’s pelagic fishing. At the top of these is Tuna and extensive improvements have been made to the Tuna processing line.

The fish factory is currently undergoing extensive modifications to handle the increasing volume of fish on a more automative basis. In time, we would like to expand into New Zealand’s small fish resources, but this is some time away at the moment, said Mr Wattie.