Kuhn Group Sales Dip 9% in 2025 but Orders Signal Recovery
Kuhn Group recorded net sales of NZ$2.27 billion in 2025, finishing around 9% lower than in 2024.
The acclaimed machinery maker Kuhn, known especially for its cultivation and grassland gear, is celebrating 190 years since Joseph Kuhn opened a forge in Alsace, France in 1828.
Today the business employs 5000 people, sells in 100 countries and generates Euro 1 billion turnover.
It’s a world away from the company that first made weigh scales then, with the opening of the Paris-Strasbourg train line, opened a new factory in Saverne where Joseph was joined by his brothers to begin making farm machinery.
By the start of the 20th century the factory was making several dozen machines each week despite the political uncertainties that saw the region become German in 1871, then French again in 1918.
WW2 saw a decade of growth end and financial insecurity compel the company to join with the Swiss Bucher-Guyer company for survival.
Noted during its 1928 centenary was the manufacture of 1000 threshing machines per year, and in 1970 its delivery of its 1,000,000th machine.
Over time it bought many farm machinery makers: the French plough maker Huard in 1987, and the mixer wagon and straw processing specialist Audureau in 1993. In 1996 it expanded its range with seed drills and sprayers when Nodet joined the business, and in 2002 it added the American mixer wagon and manure spreader maker Knight Manufacturing.
In 2005 the business bought the precision drill maker Metasa of Brazil, then the French sprayer maker Blanchard in 2008. Also that year the company expanded into balers, wrappers, drum mowers and maize harvesters with the purchase of the Kverneland Group’s Geldrop factory in Holland.
In 2011, Kuhn Group took a minority shareholding in the German company Rauch, best-known for pneumatic seed drills and fertiliser spreaders, and bought the American Krause Corporation, a maker of broadacre tillage equipment.
Its most recent purchase was the Brazilian self-propelled sprayer maker Montanna in 2014.
Farmer-owned fertiliser company, Ballance Agri Nutrients is welcoming National’s plan to negotiate security agreements with key supplier countries to protect New Zealand-bound products from export restrictions and greater supply chain certainty.
Carrfields has announced the appointment of Stu Hall to the newly created role of chief operating officer, Carrfields Ltd, reflecting the continued growth of their agribusinesses and the need to ensure the company has the leadership capacity and support in place as it pursues the emerging opportunities ahead.
New Zealand's role is not to compete with Indian growers, according to NZ Apples and Pears.
The potato industry is celebrating the success of two rising stars - James Blair, the 2026 Young Grower of the Year and runner-up and innovation award winner, Amber Davy.
Twenty-eight emerging leaders from across the horticulture sector spent two days last month learning valuable skills and connecting with industry experts.
There are five entrants in this year’s Young Horticulturist of the Year, competing in a series of technical, practical, business and leadership challenges.