Newspaper Article 1994 – A brief history – Wattie’s

A brief history

Wattie’s

The company operating in Hastings in 1994, J. Wattie Foods Limited, is the direct descendant of the fruit and vegetable processing business founded on the King St site by the late Sir James Wattie (1902-1974) in 1934. Since that time processing has been carried out continuously on the site.

The first processing by the fledgling company was the production of fruit pulp for an Auckland jam manufacturer who had been importing pulp from Tasmania. In that first season a small amount of jam was made and quantities of peaches and pears were processed.

From its beginnings in a four roomed cottage, the company grew through the 1930s to become sufficiently substantial by the time of the Second World War to gain supply contract for the Allied forces in the Pacific. It was this association which led to the first can-making line being introduced late in 1943.

A second factory was opened in Gisborne, in time for the 1951-52 season. This was to be followed by others in both the North and South Islands, all trading under the name “J. Wattie Canneries Ltd” and directed from Hastings.

By the end of the 1960s, despite a disastrous fire in February 1962, which burnt the heart out of the then Hastings factory, the company had become very significant in the New Zealand food processing industry. At that time two important mergers – with the General Foods Corporation (NZ) Ltd and with Cropper NRM Ltd – took place, resulting in the formation of Wattie Industries Ltd.

Within this group, J Wattie Canneries Ltd continued to grow and prosper through the decade of the seventies, introducing new products and technologies, and developing market shares, so that it became firmly established as New Zealand’s leading food processor.

Through a series of cross-shareholdings in the early 1980s, Wattie Industries Ltd developed an association with the Goodman Group Ltd (later Goodman Fielder Ltd) which culminated in 1987 with the completion of a merger to form Goodman Fielder Wattie Ltd, a truly Australasian company with major international activities in the food processing business.

In the same year, 1987, J. Wattie Canneries Ltd was restructured and split into five separate business units. The unit charged with the responsibility for processing and marketing canned and shelf-stable products was named J. Wattie Foods Ltd and inherited the Hastings site where Wattie had begun.

A decision by Goodman Fielder Wattie to concentrate more closely on its core business saw a proposal emerge in early 1992 to float publicly a new company on the New Zealand stock exchange.

This company would basically comprise five business units – J. Wattie Foods Ltd, Wattie Frozen Foods Ltd, Best Friend Pet Food Company Ltd, Tip Top Ice Cream Company Ltd and Tegel Poultry Ltd all of which had been a part of the Wattie Industries group.

This new company was to be called Wattie’s Ltd and based in Auckland, rather than Sydney, which had become the established headquarters of Goodman Fielder Wattie Ltd.

Considerable international interest was shown in the newly structured organisation, with the result that in October 1992, shortly before the public float was to take place, the H. J. Heinz Company made a successful bid to buy the whole of Wattie’s Ltd, including the Hastings operation of J. Wattie Foods Ltd.

Who could have foreseen, back there in 1934, when the little group of people began a small business in Hastings, that Wattie would one day become a significant unit within one of the world’s greatest food companies?

Its success stands as a tribute to the founder and to generations of Hawke’s Bay people who believed in it, and who dedicated themselves always to the task of being best in their field.

Photo captions –

The disastrous fire in February 1962 which burned the heart out of Wattie Canneries’ factory in Hastings.

The Wattie processing empire began here in this shed in 1934.

The founder of New Zealand’s biggest canning plant, James Wattie, with the Governor-General, Sir Bernard Fergusson, after his investiture as a knight bachelor in 1966.

Sir James Wattie congratulates New Zealand golf great Bob Charles on winning the Wattie tournament at the Hastings Golf Club’s course at Bridge Pa.

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