40,000 meals donated as NZFN marks fifth anniversary
The New Zealand Food Network's (NZFN) fifth birthday celebrations have been boosted by a whopping five tonne meat donation from meat processor ANZCO.
ANZCO Foods Ltd has reported a pre-tax profit of $1.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2017 — 90% lower than the previous year.
ANZCO reported $17m the year before.
“Revenue at $1.46 billion was consistent with the previous year. This result reflects a tough year in beef processing, which comprises about 60% of ANZCO Foods’ business,” said chief executive Peter Conley.
The privately owned Christchurch company’s assets include New Zealand’s only large-scale commercial feedlot, on the coast at Wakanui, near Ashburton.
The company says growth of the Wakanui brand supported its differentiated beef strategy in NZ, Asia and other markets, including the first shipments to China with the opening of that market for chilled NZ beef and lamb.
ANZCO Foods is now a 100% subsidiary of Itoham Yonekyu Holdings, a global top-10 meat company, following a shareholding change in 2017.
Despite near universal optimism in the rural sector, a panel of New Zealand’s leading food and agri minds caution that the sector must be intentional about its future path.
The dairy industry cannot rest on its laurels despite providing one in every four export dollars earned by the country, says DairyNZ chief executive Campbell Parker.
The Government is looking at intervening on behalf of Waikato farmers who face new regulations around agricultural land use while Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms are underway.
The country's second largest milk processor, Open Country Dairy, is building a butter plant at its Awarua site in Invercargill.
After 25 years it is the right time to step away, says Colin Glass, the retiring chief executive of New Zealand's largest private corporate dairying company, Dairy Holdings.
Politicians calling for New Zealand to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate risk damaging two of our gold-plated free trade deals.

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