Weddel’s World 1980 – April

Weddel’s World

WESTFIELD
TOMOANA
PATEA

KAITI – in conjunction with Gisborne Sheepfarmers Freezing Co. LTD.

QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER

ISSUED BY W. & R. FLETCHER (N.Z.) LTD

APRIL 1980

NEW ZEALAND SHEEPMEATS AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

By the Rt. Hon. B. E. Talboys Minister of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Trade

New Zealand’s trade in lamb with Britain is longstanding; it is the basis of our sheepmeat industry. For the twelve month period up to September 1979 about 64 percent of our lamb exports went to Britain, or 205,378 tonnes.

Over the years the New Zealand meat industry has developed a product which has been tailored to the British market – to the British consumers’ requirements.

The New Zealand frozen product has complemented British domestic fresh lamb. Our different seasons determine that the bulk of the production of each of our countries reaches the market at different periods.

The result is that the consumer has lamb available throughout the year.

This is important when we come to consider outlets for our lamb in the wider European Community.

We find that producers in some member countries seem especially concerned at competition from New Zealand lamb.

I believe this concern is unfounded.

The Community as a whole is only some 65 percent self-sufficient in sheepmeats even at present levels of consumption.

In a number of member countries consumption could be increased to the advantage of their producers as well as ours if lamb was available throughout the year.

Our lamb trade with Britain is not subject to any quantitative limits, although restrictions of varying intensity are applied by most other member countries of the community.

The Community as a whole took its first steps towards a sheepmeat regime when in 1978 the Commission submitted to the E. C. Council of Ministers a proposal for the regulation of the sheepmeat sector.

Since then the Council has made little progress towards the implementation of a regulation.

The French ban on imports of British lamb has been a major complication.

In my many talks over the past two years with E. C. Commissioners in Brussels and with Ministers in their capitals I have emphasised the New Zealand Government’s basic attitude, that we would prefer no regulation at all.

If it develops that there is a general acceptance within the Community that a regulation must be introduced. I have made clear our expectation that in view of its production/consumption situation the Community should be able to agree on a light regulation which will not damage New Zealand’s trading interests.

We have been assured by most Ministers that they see no need for a “heavy” Community regime similar to that applying to beef with its intervention buying and other trade limiting support measures.

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I have stressed to the Community that it New Zealand is to engage in discussions on a voluntary restraint arrangement as part of a sheepmeat regulation, our broad objectives in the negotiations will be to ensure the maximum security for our existing trade by quantity and product range and to improve the returns from that trade to the greatest possible extent’ through suspension of the 20 percent tariff.

There are good prospects for sale of our lamb to markets outside the Community.

Careful promotion of the North American markets is now paying off. The Middle East has exciting potential and a consistent trade is developing.

Nevertheless, the importance of Britain and the Community as a whole as the core of our sheepmeat trade cannot be over-emphasised.

The Government will continue its efforts to ensure that this trade is not jeopardised by any regulation which the Community may evolve in the coming years.

LAMB CUTS PLEASE AT WEST GERMAN FAIR

New Zealand lamb cuts were very well received at the recent annual Green Week fair in West Berlin where New Zealand mounted a stand to expand sales of prime cuts of lamb on the West German market.

Weddel Hamburg was responsible for running the New Zealand exhibit where portions of grilled lamb leg and frozen retail cuts were sold and they describe the fair as a considerable success.

The stand, pictured above, sold more than 7,000 portions of grilled lamb leg and 758 kilos of retail cuts

In addition Weddel Hamburg also sold kiwi fruit and arranged a contract with a local West German supermarket group and also sold nearly 20,000 kiwifruit at the fair itself to West Berliners.

Board Chairman Retires“On Top”

The long-serving chairman of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, Mr Charles Hilgendorf, retired recently after a long and distinguished career representing the interests of the country’s farmers and meat industry.

Warm tributes from many sectors of the meat industry were paid to Mr Hilgendorf at a dinner in Wellington hosted by the New Zealand Freezing Companies Association and the Meat Exporters Council.

During his eight years as chairman of the Meat Board, Mr Hilgendorf became one of the most respected and dominant figures in the industry not only in New Zealand but also with the many countries with whom New Zealand trades.

Mr Hilgendorf comes from an academic family and he himself graduated from Canterbury University with a MA in history and english in 1933.

He started farming two years later when he bought a 1,000 acre property at Te Kuiti. After two years, during which time he married Rosemary MacKenzie whom he met at University, Mr Hilgendorf sold his property and decided to return to his native Canterbury where he bought his present 800 acre property, Sherwood.

Mr Hilgendorf started his career as a farmer’s representative when, shortly after the war, he joined the local branch of the Farmers’ Union. In 1948 the old Farmers’ Union and the Sheepowners’ Union combined to become Federated Farmers and he became chairman of the Mid-Canterbury area meat and wool section. A year later he was president of the Mid-Canterbury Federated Farmers.

He served for some time on the electoral college which elects members of the Meat and Wool Boards. He was later defeated for the electoral college but stayed on the Meat and Wool section of Federated Farmers.

In 1961, he was elected to the Meat Board, and he served for four years as deputy chairman before being elected chairman in 1972.

Mr Hilgendorf is a Justice of the Peace and was awarded the CMG in 1971.

In giving his reasons for retiring Mr Hilgendorf said: “I’d rather be remembered as an efficient chairman than a man on the downward path.”

And remembered as such he will be!

OVERSEAS VISITORS

The Vestey organisation’s chief executive, Mr W P M Griffiths and his wife recently visited W. & R. Fletcher’s installations in the North Island during a recent visit to New Zealand.

Mr Griffiths met senior Fletcher personnel in the Wellington head office and had informal meetings with the retiring chairman of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, Mr Charles Hilgendorf, and other board members.

Another prominent overseas visitor was Mr Edmund Vestey for talks with the group’s shipping interests in New Zealand, Blue Star port Lines Management.

EUROPE BATTLE CONTINUES

Heading the campaign to ensure the free entry of New Zealand lamb into Europe, New Zealand’s Minister for Overseas Trade, The Rt. Hon. Brian Talboys, has been putting the country’s case to European ministers, farmers groups and other associations in recent trips to Europe. He is pictured above with the West German Minister of State for the Federal Chancellery, Hans-Jurgen Wischnewski (left) and the New Zealand Ambassador to Bonn, Mr Basil Franklin Bolt.

WEDDEL FIJI AGENTS EXPAND PACIFIC OPERATIONS

W. & R. Fletcher (NZ) Ltd has expanded its penetration into the Pacific market with the appointment of its sole Fijian agents, The Stinson Pearce group, as agents in American and Western Samoas.

The company’s indent division head, Mr Wilf Bentley, reports that initial orders from the new markets are very encouraging.

The deputy manager of the division, Mr Chris Bing will visit the two Samoas at least once monthly to service the new market.

Stinson Pearce, one of the major companies in Fiji, already imports several million dollars worth of goods from Fletcher’s annually including frozen, chilled and canned meats, stockfoods and dripping.

The Fletcher contribution represented about 64 percent of the group’s total imports from New Zealand in 1979.

Stinson Pearce has seen a rapid growth in recent years, highlighted when it acquired the shareholding of the giant Hong Kong group, Jardine, Matheson and Company in 1978. In the mid 60’s it was essentially not much more than a clutch of unrelated small photographic and import agency enterprises.

But today it operates as a retailer, wholesaler, importer and manufacturer’s representative dealing with some of the best known international brand names and in 1975 became the first local company to make a significant investment overseas by obtaining a controlling interest in New Zealand’s Martins toyshop chain and the associated wholesaling business, Marlowe Agencies.

Stinson Pearce took a practical step forward in its policy to develop Fiji’s largely untouched natural resources with the development of a large export industry of citrus fruit juices in New Zealand.

Mr Bentley joined Pearce and Company Limited in 1944, became a director of the company in 1949 and was managing director at the time his company merged interests with Stinson in 1974.

He is presently general manager of the Indent Division and a director of Pacific Mercantile Co Ltd, one of the group’s subsidiaries.

For those agricultural economists who keep telling the man on the land that things have improved for him a layman has come up with this humourous reply:-

“It all started back in ’67 when they changed to dollars and overnight me overdraft doubled.

“I was just getting used to this when they brought in kilograms or somethin’ and the woolclip dropped in half.

“Then they started playin’ around with the weather and brought in Celsius and we haven’t had a decent drop of rain since.

This wasn’t enough. They had to change us over to hectares and I end up with less than half the farm I had.

“So one day I sat down and had a think.

“I reckoned that with daylight savin’ I was workin’ eight days a week, so I decided to sell out.

“But to cap it off, I’d only got the place in the agent’s hands when they changed to kilometres, and I find I’m too flamin’ far out of town anyway!”

Malaysia Needs Container Shipping

The general manager of the Malayan Refrigerating company, Mr Ian Chisholm, has called for a far better shipping service for New Zealand goods to Malaysia and neighbouring countries.

Mr Chisholm, whose company is part of the world-wide Vestey organisation, said that he felt the time was past for the service to progress to containerisation as New Zealand was the only developed country exporting to the region under traditional methods.

“Our ports are fully equipped to handle containers and I feel that the time has come for the change,” Mr Chisholm said.

“The introduction of containers will mean that frozen goods will be shipped in a better condition. It makes sense.”

Mr Chisholm also called for a more regular shipping service from New Zealand to Malaysia, with vessels servicing the area once a month.

Mr Chisholm joined the Vestey group in London in 1966 having returned to Britain from a marketing position in India with the express intention of going overseas again.

“I was lucky as I applied just as a fellow who was to be posted to Malaysia had left, so I walked into the job.”

After a training course that covered the Dewhurst group of local butcher shops, a Weddel cannery and other Vesteys plant operations Mr Chisholm spent a spell in the group’s Far East department in London before transferring to the Malayan Refrigerating Company as an assistant in charge of the Penang branch cold store. He then moved to the marketing facet of the company’s operations and in February 1974 took over as general manager.

Mr Chisholm says that Malaya is an important and growing market for New Zealand meat, taking some 600 tonnes of beef and 250 tonnes of lamb.

“The beef, which is all primal cuts, represents 40 percent of our company’s beef imports and our trade is directed to hotels, restaurants and the expanding demand from oil rig operations.

“With the area developing as a convention centre and more than two million tourists visiting the country annually meat imports must continue to rise.

“Also the local population is becoming more and more affluent and they are now getting accustomed and dependent on frozen foods, so this will be a further avenue for meat sales,” Mr Chisholm says.

The Malayan Refrigerating Company also re-exports New Zealand meat and other products to Borneo, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, lndia, Pakistan and the Seychelles Islands.

During his stay in New Zealand, which was Mr Chisholm’s first visit, he had talks with Fletcher’s senior personnel in Wellington and visited the Westfield and Tomoana freezing works. He also visited the William Angliss group operations in Australia.

Photo caption – Ian Chisholm discussing the export of Weddel meat from New Zealand to Malaysia with Tim Parry of the export sales department during his visit to Fletcher’s head office in Wellington.

OBITUARY:

J. B. GUINIVEN

It is with regret Weddel’s World reports the death of Mr J. B. (Jack) Guiniven, a former long-serving member of the Auckland Meat Company.

Mr Guiniven joined the A.M.C. in 1929 and spent his whole 43-year career at the Wakefield Street Depot. During this time he went from town roundsman, which in the thirties entailed deliveries to hotels by horse and cart, to shop manager, depot manager and finally staff supervisor.

He was a prominent member of the Auckland Rowing Club and apart from competitive participation also coached crews from both Kings and Sacred Heart colleges.

Mr Guiniven is survived by a wife, two married daughters, five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

JACK LORD RETIRES AFTER 46 YEAR’S SERVICE.

A nostalgic luncheon was held in Wellington of many of W & R Fletcher’s export business associates to mark the retirement of a well known identity in the industry, Mr Jack Lord.

Mr Lord, the head of production, had completed 46 years’ service with W & R Fletcher, starting as an office boy when Fletcher’s head office operations were based in Auckland.

Known throughout the group and the industry for his keen wit and ready appreciation of all situations Mr Lord said he tempered his farewell speech with an unusual air of sedateness … “for the benefit of all the outsiders present”.

In his latter years he was responsible for the production side of Fletcher’s business in New Zealand, including the monitoring of the production and sales of casings and other specialised by-products and was also engaged in works operation and buying schedules.

When asked once for a description of his job responsibility he wryly answered that perhaps it would not be prudent to answer because “then too many people will know what I do, including Lord Vestey!

Mr Lord and his wife Lorelle will shortly leave for Britain and Europe for a three month motoring holiday seeing the countryside and renewing acquaintances with many old friends.

Jack Lord, (left) at the industry farewell lunch to mark his retirement, with (from left) Mr Rex McKee, general manager of Container Terminals Ltd, Mr Mark Hinchliff, former general manager of W. & R. Fletcher (NZ) Ltd.

WESTFIELD RETIREMENTS

The chief engineer at the Westfield Freezing Company, Mr Kevin Tomlinson, thanks foreman carpenter George Cosford for his 45 years’ service with Fletcher’s and presents him with a silver tea and coffee service.

George joined the Patea Freezing Company in 1934 and was appointed foreman carpenter in 1956, and transferred to the same position at Westfield in 1969.

Staff wished George and his wife Nelle a long and happy retirement.

A farewell function was held at Tomoana recently for W. & R. Fletcher’s group casings superintendent, George Lobban, who retired after 47 years’ service.

George spent his whole career with Fletcher’s in the casings department joining the Tomoana works in 1933 and also serving at the group’s Westfield and Patea works before returning to Tomoana.

George will spend much of his spare time at his beach house and is also keenly involved in rugby administration, serving on the Hastings sub-union.

At another Westfield retirement function assistant works manager Dempsey Young (right) and general manager Gordon Taylor, (left) made presentations to Lou Foster who had been associated with the company for 40 years.

Lou was appointed to the staff from the chain in 1964 as a mutton slaughter foreman, a position he held until his retirement.

Mr Young, in wishing him well for the future, presented Lou with a set of silver goblets and a tray on behalf of the staff and Mr Taylor presented him with a gold watch to mark his 40 years’ service.

BOWLS SUCCESS

The paymaster at the Patea Freezing Company, Rex Ansley, recently distinguished himself on the bowling green when he won the Taranaki junior singles champion of champions title at the tournament played at Stratford and Eltham.

Condolences to the family of George Manchester, who passed away recently. Mr Manchester, who had been Fletcher’s Hamilton livestock buyer, retired about 11 years ago.

Dean Kershaw, pictured above in traditional dress, a mutton butcher at the Patea Freezing Works, recently took part in a fascinating tour of China as a member of the New Zealand Maori Cultural Group.

The tour party was made up of 22 performers and three officials who gave performances in Hong Kong and various Chinese centres during a two and a half week tour and was selected on the basis of the performance of individuals at recent Polynesian festivals.

The climax of the tour was a performance in Peking attended by Chinese ministers and government officials, diplomats and the local people.

The group also visited cities, factories and universities where they staged impromptu demonstrations to voice their thanks to their hosts, with a great response and a ready demand of encores.

The official 90 minute show comprised many traditional Maori songs including Poi, Haka, action songs and Waitata, [Waiata] – old time Maori chants.

COMPANY PROFILE

W. & R. Fletcher’s head cashier in Wellington head office, Margaret Sinclair, has seen a vast change in her department in her 24 years service, which puts her among the longest serving women in the group. Margaret joined the company as a cashier in 1956 when the head office was based in Customhouse Quay, and all the accounts office work was done by hand, with bank reconciliation taking up nearly all of her duties. Then in the mid 1960’s the system was revolutionised with the introduction of a computer to the group which saw Margaret extending her responsibilities to shipping and freight analyses and today she deals with forward exchanges and insurance. Another development in the department, says Margaret, is the growth in the number of internal accountants.

Slight of build, Margaret recently surprised many of her friends by taking up a new hobby – the Chinese martial art of Tai Chi. And the reason for the sport is quite unique. Margaret has long been a student of philosophy and her tutors encouraged her to take up meditation as an associate study.

“I then decided on Tai Chi as basically all of the martial arts have a strong base of meditation to their philosophies,” Margaret said. “And now its quite funny as some of the newer recruits who are big strapping lads come up to me and ask MY advice on some of the techniques.” The art has led Margaret into developing her interest in Chinese culture through her communication with the Chinese community at the Chinese Mission where the classes are held and she is now learning both the Mandarin and Cantonese languages. “The Mission services are held in both English and Chinese and as I made friends there I wanted to speak to them in their own languages. They were teaching me how to speak the language well enough but I have now joined a Victoria University extension class to learn to read and write the two dialects.” Margaret’s other spare time interests include knitting, sewing, tapestry and gardening.