Exports aim of new abattoir owner

Press, 19 June 1980, Page 2

Exports aim of new abattoir owner

Canterbury Bye-Products, Ltd, the new owner of the city abattoir, hopes to be exporting from its Sockburn plant by the middle of next year. The $2.4M deal was completed yesterday with the Christchurch City Council, and the company will take over officially in September. Canterbury Bye-Products is a co-operative of 300 Christchurch retail butchers which has run the abattoir for the last 30 years under a deed of delegation from the council. No rental or income from the land and buildings has been payable to the council and no direct costs have been incurred by it. Staff numbers would be kept at the present level, but with the proposed move into the export market the company hoped to be taking on' more workers. The managing director of the company (Mr A. S. Marshall) said that $4. IM had been spent on improvements to the abattoir since 1973, and it was hoped to accelerate the development in the

, next few months to comply ! with Government regulations i to gain an export licence. i “Because the City Council owned the building we had no asset to borrow against, but now we are in a posii tion to raise money for further development,” Mr Mari shall said. “Our object will be to hold slaughtering charges to i a minimum and we have the housewives’ interests , at heart when it comes to retail prices,” he said. The company hoped to export edible offal items such as sheep and cows’ : stomachs to Asian markets i next year if its application for an export licence suc- : ceeded. The Mayor of Christchurch (Mr Hamish Hay) did not foresee any big new projects being undertaken on the strength of the extra $2.4 million that the council had acquired. “In my view, a capital receipt of this magnitude should be applied to finance a major council project and the obvious choice is the

new Civic Office Building in Tuam Street,” Mr Hay said. “A reduction of more than $2 million in the loan requirements for this commitment would be of. very significant assistance in its over-all financing and would result in a saving of more than $350,000 per annum m loan servicing charges.” Some years ago the council raised a loan of $BOO,OOO (since reduced to $670,000) on which all the interest and loan-servicing charges were met by the company. Under the terms of the purchase, this loan would be repaid in full when the final settlement was made. A change in the Meat Act, which will become effective in 1981, means that local bodies no longer have to provide abattoirs in their districts.