Blue Sky Meats eyes greener pastures

The value was added during the January to March period in the areas of significantly improved yields, an increase of over double on the volume of chilled lamb exports, and cost savings across the business.

The company says this helped to partially offset a 2017 fiscal year loss of $1.9 million on sales of $98 million.

BSM chief executive Todd Grave, says despite the loss in 2017, the results for the first three months of the 2018 year were up significantly on budget and previous years which displayed a positive trend for the upcoming season.

“Including the use of the new, fully operational effluent storage pond, we are already seeing the effects from the first quarter of the bottom-up strategic plan.

“The Plan forms the platform for a return to profit and outlines 20 projects which will bring a targeted $7.8 million of added value over the three-year period. The results in the first quarter were double what we’d anticipated.

“In addition, last year the base business, our Morton Mains plant, generated a small profit and we maintained strong selling prices,” says Grave.

He acknowledged there was a bit of a ‘financial hangover’ they were dealing with from the 2017 year but the business was very future-focused. Contributors to the loss included one-off, unbudgeted costs such as weather-related delays in the operation of its new effluent pond resulting in lost income, and non-recoverable costs incurred from the NZ Binxi takeover attempt, as well as poor performance from the Gore Beef Plant due to difficult market conditions.

“Since its acquisition in 2014 the Beef Plant has struggled due to high schedule prices and weak overseas market dynamics. The tough decision was made to temporarily close the plant until a long-term feasible solution is identified as part of the Plan,” says Grave.

BSM is currently celebrating 30 years in business and employs 350 staff, of which many will celebrate their 25 year-long service at the upcoming AGM on August 21.