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Silver Fern Farms chief executive Simon Limmer.
Meat processor, Silver Fern Farms is on track to end all coal use by 2030.
With financial assistance the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) Fund, the company is embarking on its third “coal-out” project.
GIDI is providing $1milion towards the $2.6m project at SFF’s Pareora processing site, south of Timaru.
The Pareora heat-pump conversion project is the company’s third successful project under the GIDI fund and represents another important step in SFF’s commitment to playing a leadership role in driving sustainability in the red meat sector.
SFF chief executive, Simon Limmer, says it was committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the company’s value chain.
“The work we are doing to reduce the environmental impact of our processing operations is just one of the ways we’re making sure we do the right thing by our customers, who increasingly want to know that their red meat is sustainably produced.
“Support from the GIDI fund means we can make significant capital investments in low carbon energy with certainty and is a great example of how the private sector can collaborate with the Government for climate-positive outcomes,” says Limmer.
Silver Fern Farms has committed to a 1.5 degree science aligned target to reduce combined Scope 1 and 2 processing emissions by 42% by 2030 (from a 2020 base year) and will lead the red meat sector by joining the International Science based Targets initiative (SBTi) by the end of 2021.
“Reflecting our market leading initiatives in launching a net carbon zero beef product into the US later this year and wider on-farm sustainability work, our aim is to strongly position Silver Fern Farms as a leading climate-positive food brand,” says Limmer.
In August, Silver Fern Farms achieved Toitū enviromark diamond certification, the highest New Zealand-based environmental certification.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Dan Boulton says the meat processor wants to find ways of getting product destined for Middle East markets into those markets as opposed to try and place them elsewhere.
Additional tariffs introduced by the Chinese Government last month on beef imports should favour New Zealand farmers and exporters.
The second event in the Silver Fern Farms ‘Pasture to Plate Roadshow’ landed in Feilding last week, headed by chair and King Country farmer, Anna Nelson, and chief executive Dan Boulton.
Keep up with innovation and e-commerce in China or risk losing market share. That was the message delivered at the China Business Summit in Auckland this month.
New Zealand must continue to educate Chinese consumers about the unique qualities of its red meat products and how they differ from competitors, says Silver Fern Farms chief executive Dan Boulton.
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