Strong Milk Price Boosts PGG Wrightson Earnings
Strong farmgate milk price is helping boost investment on farms, says PGG Wrightson chief executive Stephen Guerin.
Goat farmers supplying milk to the Dairy Goat Cooperative (DGC) were paid $18.50/kgMS last year.
Speaking at the annual meeting last month, chairman Campbell Storey reported a year of strong revenue.
This grew from $177 million in 2015-16 to $193m in 2016-17; sales grew in existing and developing export markets.
“Farmer payout remained positive at $18.50/kgMS,” he said.
During the financial year DGC gained accreditation to the international FSSC22000 food safety systems certification standard.
Farmer-shareholders voted to appoint Mark Dewdney the third independent director on the DGC board. He recently retired as chief executive of PGG Wrightson, having previously worked for Fonterra and LIC.
DGC was set up in 1984 to develop, manufacture and market overseas its own-brand goat milk nutritional powders for infants and children.
It sources goat milk from its shareholder suppliers in Northland, Waikato and Taranaki.
At its Hamilton base it owns and operates all its core manufacturing processes, enabling tightly controlled production of high quality milk formula. It has at least 200 staff there.
DGC products are sold in at least 20 countries.
While the District Field Days brought with it a welcome dose of sunshine, it also attracted a significant cohort of sitting members from the Beehive – as one might expect in an election year.
Irish Minister of State of Agriculture, Noel Grealish was in New Zealand recently for an official visit.
While not all sibling rivalries come to blows, one headline event at the recent New Zealand Rural Games held in Palmerston North certainly did, when reigning World Champion Jack Jordan was denied the opportunity of defending his world title in Europe later this year, after being beaten by his big brother’s superior axle blows, at the Stihl Timbersports Nationals.
AgriZeroNZ has invested $5.1 million in Australian company Rumin8 to accelerate development of its methane-reducing products for cattle and bring them to New Zealand.
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