Friday, March 29, 2024

Open Country celebrates 10 years

Avatar photo
When Open Country Dairy founding Waikato suppliers Cliff and June Hazelton were asked to pick their supply number the temptation was irresistible.
Reading Time: < 1 minute

It had to be 007.

That was 10 years ago, when Open Country was just a start-up cheese processor at Waharoa, near Matamata, but for the Hazeltons, who helped celebrate the company’s first decade at an open day on site last week, the memory of quitting the co-operative Fonterra to join a privately owned industry unknown was still sharp.

The couple made the switch because they wanted to support a local company and though Open Country is the country’s second-biggest export dairy processor now and a vastly different entity to 10 years ago, they have never regretted it.

They contracted one of their two Waharoa properties to supply Open Country in 2004 and the second the following year.

The Waharoa plant, which produces cheese, whey, anhydrous milk fat, and whole milk powder after a string of additions, is one of four Open Country sites around the country now, but the Hazeltons said it still felt like a friendly and approachable local company.

They were among nearly 500 suppliers and family members who turned out to help cut the 10th birthday cake and tour Open Country’s first plant.

Chairman Laurie Margrain said the company that started with two Waharoa suppliers in 2004 would start the 2014-2015 season in June with 650 farmers and its four sites at capacity.

Chief executive Steve Koekemoer, who rejoined the company 18 months ago after serving as national operations manager for Dairy Trust, the previous registered name for Open Country, said when the new Southland plant extension was finished next year the company would be processing 1.2 billion litres of milk a year.

 

 

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading