The group of Hawke’s Bay vegetable growers who spent five months trying to buy the McCain factory in Hastings has walked away, after being told the processing equipment they wanted to buy is no longer available.
The growers confirmed the decision on Wednesday in a statement released through the Central Hawke’s Bay District Council. Their whole plan rested on the freezing and packing plant staying where it was, so that frozen vegetable production could carry on under new ownership. Without the machinery, there was nothing left to buy but a building.
Grower spokesperson Hew Dalrymple said the group had explored the opportunity thoroughly and in good faith, but had been left with no option other than to withdraw its offer.
“This is an incredibly disappointing outcome for us all, but on learning the processing equipment is no longer available, that fundamentally changed the situation,” Dalrymple said.
“While this particular chapter has come to an end, it doesn’t diminish our commitment to finding a future for vegetable growing and frozen vegetable production in Hawke’s Bay. Our growers remain committed to exploring what opportunities may still exist.”
McCain told its growers in March that it would close the Hastings site by January 2027, at the end of the current processing and packing season. In a letter to suppliers the company said it had reviewed the operation and considered a range of options, but was “unable to identify a sustainable pathway under the current model”, and would instead source vegetable products through supply partners in its wider network. The plant on Omahu Road at Twyford processed more than 50,000 tonnes of vegetables a year. More than 100 growers of peas, beans, sweetcorn and carrots supply it.
Hastings District Mayor Wendy Schollum and Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Will Foley asked McCain in May for an eight week pause on any major changes to the site while a feasibility study was done. The company said no. Its answer at the time contained the detail that has now ended the whole exercise.
“Prior to receiving the councils’ request, McCain had listed the site for commercial sale and a process is currently underway for the site’s sale. Our Hastings team has already commenced decommissioning certain plant equipment,” a company spokesperson told RNZ in late May.
That decommissioning was already running while the growers were still assembling their numbers. In June the Government put $50,000 into the first stage of a feasibility study for a grower led purchase, announced by Agriculture Minister Todd McClay. The growers had estimated the full study they needed would cost around $450,000. Two months later the equipment the study was meant to value has gone.
Schollum said it was a disappointing outcome after months of work.
“This is a disappointing outcome for the workers, growers, contractors and businesses connected to the plant, but it is about far more than one facility. Hawke’s Bay is one of New Zealand’s key food-producing regions, and vegetable growing and processing are vital to local jobs, our regional economy and the country’s food security,” she said.
“If we want New Zealand to keep producing and processing more of its own food, we need practical action to support this sector.”
Foley said the councils remained in active discussions with central government, whose support would be critical in deciding whether vegetable growing and processing in Hawke’s Bay has a sustainable future. “This industry has been part of our region for generations. We owe it to our growers, workers and communities to continue exploring every opportunity to retain and grow that capability into the future,” he said.
The timing is awkward for the growers who supply the plant. Federated Farmers Hawke’s Bay provincial president Jim Galloway told RNZ in March that growers of peas, beans and sweetcorn normally sign a contract in the middle of the year and plant through August and September. It is now the end of July, the factory is closing, and the bid that might have replaced it has collapsed.
“Now they’ll have nothing to grow because there is no-one there to take their product,” Galloway said at the time. He also noted how far growers would have to truck crops to reach the next processing option, and said a lot of the product replacing theirs was coming in from offshore.
Hawke’s Bay grower Hugh Ritchie, who grew peas, corn and carrots for McCain, said in March that his operation had put money into equipment to wash and pre-process carrots. “So yeah, there’s quite a lot of sunk investment there that now doesn’t have a home,” he told Morning Report. He said there had been warning signs, with McCain cutting its pea area by 20 percent and its corn and bean area by 50 percent that year, on the explanation that its freezers were full.
McCain is not the only company leaving the category. Heinz Wattie’s confirmed in late March that it would close manufacturing sites in Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland along with frozen packing lines in Hastings, with about 300 jobs going as it exits frozen vegetables, coffee and dips in New Zealand. Its Christchurch closure affects roughly 220 Canterbury growers who supply about 36,000 tonnes of peas a year. Wattie’s was founded in Hastings in 1934.
A McCain spokesperson said the company had communicated directly with key stakeholders through the transition and recognised it was an important issue for growers, employees and the wider Hastings community. The company said it was consulting with affected employees and providing transition assistance, career support and wellbeing services. It has previously said its potato operations and other Australian and New Zealand facilities, including Timaru, are not affected.
The two councils say they will keep working with growers, industry and the Government on whether frozen vegetable processing in Hawke’s Bay can be rebuilt in some other form. What that would look like without a plant, without machinery and without a buyer is the question nobody has answered yet.
Do you think New Zealand should be doing more to keep its own vegetable processing onshore, or is this simply what open competition looks like? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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