WHITE GOLD
BLUES
Westland Milk Products is contemplating
a change in ownership
structure to improve returns to
cooperative shareholders. The
Hokitika-based company, which
has lagged behind rivals in its
returns, has appointed Macquarie
Capital and DG Advisory to look at
capital and ownership options that
create more sustainable capital
structure and a higher potential
pay-out. Westland chairman Pete
Morrison says New Zealand’s
third-largest dairy company and
the second-biggest dairy cooperative
has recently refreshed
its governance and leadership
team and focused on producing
higher-value product. “We’ve had
strong interest from new suppliers
and we take great heart from that,
as well as the loyalty shown by
existing shareholders,” Morrison
says. Shareholders have clearly
indicated support for a new plan,
but the company needs to access
new and increased capital, he
says. “We have relatively high debt
levels and limited financial flexibility
and therefore it is now timely
to look ahead and consider the
options that can provide a sustained,
higher payout and improve
the company’s financial flexibility.”
Options include continuing the
current cooperative model with its
capital constraints, introducing a
cornerstone investor to provide
new capital to fund growth, and a
merger or divestment of the cooperative.
Westland’s board expects
to update shareholders before
Christmas.
8 SEPTEMBER 2018
UNWANTED NUISANCE
TO BE PROCESSED
A blue mussel processing plant will be
established in Marlborough by the Government’s
Provincial Growth Fund at a cost of
$772,000. Regional economic development
under-secretary Fletcher Tabuteau says the
initiative will lift the productivity of the region
by providing extra jobs, upskilling and
economic value to an otherwise discarded
natural resource. “Until now it has been
uneconomic to process blue mussels using
standard industry practises,” he says. “In
the course of farming for green lipped mussels,
they are considered a by-product and
an unwanted nuisance on commercial green
shell mussel farms, and current practise is
GENE EDITORS
DISAPPOINTED
to strip them from the green shell growing
lines and throw them overboard.” Successful
trials conducted at Callaghan Innovation
have confirmed the new processing plant
will take harvested blue mussels and use
them to produce useful materials – from
proteins in pet food, to crushed shells as an
alternative to pesticides. “Having a processing
plant of this kind in the Marlborough
region opens up a wide array of potential future
joint aquaculture ventures with local iwi
and private enterprise, including improving
the use of Māori and other private assets,”
Tabuteau says.
NEWS
SNIPS
T&G Global,
New Zealand’s
biggest fresh
produce grower,
distributor,
marketer and
exporter, has
posted a 40%
jump in first-half
operating profit
due to improved
performances
from its pipfruit
and international
produce
businesses
Hort NZ has
signed up to
be part of the
prestigious
Ahuwhenua
Trophy Te Puni
Kōkiri Excellence
in Māori Farming
Award
New Zealand’s
king pie-maker
Patrick Lam of
Patrick’s Pies
Café and Bakery
in Tauranga
has won his
sixth Bakels
New Zealand
Supreme Pie
Award with
a roast pork
and creamy
mushroom pie
Turning hoki
skins into a
natural skin care
product has won
New Zealand
nanofibre
producer
Revolution Fibres
a top honour for
its expertise in
electrospinning
at the Seafood
Stars Awards.
NEWS
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foodtechnology.co.nz
New Zealand’s gene editors are “hugely
disappointed” with Europe’s highest court
ruling that gene-edited crops should be
subject to the same stringent regulations as
GMOs. Massey University’s Professor Barry
Scott, who is co-chair on the Royal Society
Te Apārangi gene editing panel, calls the
ruling “hugely disappointing. It does not
seem to take into account the significant
differences in the new gene editing technologies
compared to the older technologies.”
The Court of Justice of the European
Union has ruled that crops created through
processes such as CRISPR are subject to
the 2001 directive that legislates deliberate
release of GMOs into the environment.
New Zealand’s food safety regulator Food
Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)
is in the process of reviewing how the
Code applies to gene editing. Genomics
Aotearoa director Professor Peter Dearden
says the decision will have little impact
here, but says it is a problem that “we, and
the EU, yet again, are trying to regulate
technologies rather than outcomes. In the
end, the key things to test are the risks and
benefits of the organism to be released.
Surely this is more important than the way
it was made.” Plant & Food Research’s Dr
Kieran Elborough says it is important to
distinguish that the court ruling is not the
same as “a scientific paper detailing the
safety or efficacy of these technologies.
This is an example of the challenges faced
by regulators as potential new solutions to
important issues such as food sustainability
and security in the face of a growing population
and climate change emerge.”