Top dairy CEO quits
Arguably one of the country's top dairy company's chief executives, Richard Wyeth has abruptly quit Chinese owned Westland Milk Products (WMP)
THE COUNTRY's Second largest dairy processor has set a new record for milk collection.
Hokitika-based Westland Milk Products says its tankers brought in a little over four million litres of milk on October 31.
In spite of a wet and cold season on the West Coast, Westland's shareholders pulled out all the stops to lift production by more than 5% last year. By November 29, shareholders had sent 335 million litres of raw milk to the company's plants in Hokitika and Rolleston, with several months of the season still to go.
Coast-based shareholders produced a 3% increase on this time last year and their Canterbury shareholders are up by more than 14%.
Westland chief executive Rod Quin says the record production continues a series of record years for Westland and is a credit to shareholders on both sides of the Alps.
"Weather plays a big part in production figures," Quin says, "but so does farm management practices and our shareholders have shown that they are right up there in terms of efficiency and herd management."
Quin says that the peak flows stretched Westland's current processing capacity to the limit and he looked forward to the new dryer seven at Hokitika coming on stream for next season and the UHT plant in Rolleston following shortly after that. The new plant will enable Westland to process more higher-value products even through the season's peak when, traditionally, the company has had to focus on lower value bulk milk powder production to get the volumes through.
He noted that, in spite of the current glut of supply on the world dairy markets, he was not expecting Westland to have any difficulty on-selling the record production, with as much as possible being funnelled into added-value nutritional products for which the market remains strong.
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.
DairyNZ says its plantain programme continues to deliver promising results, with new data confirming that modest levels of plantain in pastures reduce nitrogen leaching, offering farmers a practical, science-backed tool to meet environmental goals.
'Common sense' cuts to government red tape will make it easier for New Zealand to deliver safe food to more markets.
Balclutha farmer Renae Martin remembers the moment she fell in love with cows.
Academic freedom is a privilege and it's put at risk when people abuse it.
OPINION: Should cows in NZ be microchipped?
OPINION: Legislation being drafted to bring back the controversial trade of live animal exports by sea is getting stuck in the…