West Coast co-op champion bows out in style

But that’s exactly what Westland Milk Products director Jim Wafelbakker, now 71, did when he decided to be a farmer, something his professional upper-middle-class Dutch family thought was beneath him.

Wafelbakker started out dairying in Otorohanga and ended up fulfilling another one of those boys’ own adventure cliches . . . he married Winnie, a good Kiwi lass who just happened to be the boss’s daughter.

After a period of sharemilking on Winnie’s dad’s farm the young couple bought  their own place in the scenic Waitaha Valley, a half hour’s drive south of Hokitika on the South Island’s West Coast. 

That was in 1974 and Wafelbakker, with his self-confessed ‘upfront and blunt’ style, must have made a quick impression because, in 1987, his neighbouring farmers had elected him as a director on the cooperative’s board, representing the Waitaha district of about 14 shareholders at the time. 

Wafelbakker received the handsome sum of $67.40 for attending each board day, $10 of which he gave to Winnie for doing the milking while he was away.

Coincidentally, 1987 was the year of the company’s 50^th anniversary. Now, in the year of Westland Milk Product’s 75^th jubilee, Wafelbakker is finally stepping down as a director, an unbroken stint of 25 years service. 

There’s been a lot of milk through the pipes in those years. 

Wafelbakker has seen the state of farming, the dairy industry, and of Westland, change dramatically.  

He has been in the thick of changes which have seen the company evolve from a supplier to the New Zealand Dairy Board – which had a monopoly on all milk product exports – to a fully fledged independent milk products company. 

Westland now does its own exporting, marketing, product development and research; and occupies a significant space in the agricultural and West Coast economy as the second biggest dairy cooperative in New Zealand.  

Perhaps the biggest change was when the Dairy Board was broken up. West Coast dairy farmers had an opportunity to opt in with the big boys and be part of the giant that became Fonterra. But the Coasters have always had a fiercely independent spirit and a deep distrust of the folk ‘over the hill’, especially when it comes to the region’s primary industries.

“Coasters had a long history of doing the dirty work but someone else, not in the region, making the money,” says Wafelbakker. 

“When we dug the gold, it was the bankers and dealers in Dunedin and Christchurch who made the money; when we cut the timber, the same, we did the dirty work while the suits over the hill made the real money; same with coal. Then dairying really came into its own and in 2001 we had a chance to do something different; we had a chance not just to be the boys that did the dirty work, but also the boys that made the money!”

Wafelbakker was an ardent campaigner for the Coast to form its own dairy company and he still describes it as one of the best things he’s been part of and of which Coasters can be justly proud.

“It was a bold decision. But it has saved the industry on the Coast. I am convinced that if we had not gone our own way our future would not have been as secure.

“Instead, we invested in the company, we built a new factory, commissioned new plant and put money and time into researching and developing new products. 

“We’ve kept the jobs, and the money, here. When the decision was made, shopkeepers were stopping me in the street to say thank you, people were phoning to say thank you. They knew how much retaining this business as our own meant to the local economy.”

Wafelbakker says that, like any new company, the newly independent Westland Milk Products has had its ups and downs, but the general direction is up, and the long term outlook good.

“Since becoming a director the cooperative has increased production by an average of 16% every year. How many companies anywhere in New Zealand can claim that?”

Of course, for directors like Wafelbakker, and the farmer suppliers generally, it’s been a steep learning curve.

“In the old days the directors had a pretty easy job of it really. The Dairy Board looked after all the marketing and exporting and product development, we just had to look after the factory. 

“Now we have to worry about marketing and development and cashflow and keeping clients, getting new ones, developing new products – it’s all a very big deal. I know of no other job (being a director) where the decisions we make so directly affect the incomes and lifestyles of our fellow farmers.”