\u201cIt raises real tough questions for us regional leaders about how we can get our economy out of this hole. The immediate priority is providing support for the staff who are affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closure of Carter Holt Harvey\u2019s Eves Valley sawmill could kill 142 jobs.<\/p>\n
The closure of Sealord\u2019s coated fish factory could see 79 jobs gone.<\/p>\n
A further 65 jobs could go at the Griffin\u2019s Proper Crisps factory.<\/p>\n
And an unknown number of jobs at retailer Kitchen Things are also likely to go, with the shop set to close without any prospective buyers.<\/p>\n
Nelson’s Mayor, Dr Nick Smith, says the city is reeling after the announcement of several business closures and hundreds of job losses. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n
Smith said another priority was to engage with the food processing industry to ask it what councils and the Government could do to stop \u201cthis continued loss of employment\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are losing too many [businesses]. We need to think strategically as a region. How do we do better to hang on to these types of businesses?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact on jobs is a big worry. If we add up the closures of the last three months, we\u2019re over 500. That is a massive hit to our employment market.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nelson community was reeling from the job losses, Smith said, with announcements of closures sending shockwaves through the region.<\/p>\n
Many other businesses provided the affected businesses with professional services, \u201cso the flow-on impacts are significantly larger\u201d.<\/p>\n
Smith said certain food and beverage products were \u201ca key part of the Nelson brand\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Closures were] a disappointment for Nelson, in that we have these very smart, innovative people that have provided unique food products, like Proper Crisps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said Proper Crisps was a \u201cquite unique\u201d company started by locals about 20 years ago. It was bought by Griffin\u2019s, and he understood the company wanted to consolidate production in Wiri, Auckland. <\/p>\n
He said he was keen to speak to the Government about a regional deal. Smith said he would also \u201ctry and create jobs to fill these big holes\u201d through the council\u2019s regional economic development plans.<\/p>\n
Eves Valley sawmill is the largest in the South Island, was built in the 1980s, and produces a lot of timber framing used for construction. Carter Holt Harvey plans to consolidate milling and manufacturing in Kawerau, Smith said.<\/p>\n
Sealord\u2019s chief executive, Doug Paulin, said increasing costs and requests for higher supermarket margins had driven the company\u2019s decision to close the Nelson coated fish factory, Radio New Zealand reported.<\/p>\n
Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers business, breaking news and local stories from T\u0101maki Makaurau. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt raises real tough questions for us regional leaders about how we can get our economy out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10166,8606,29659,10668,2216,22051,13741,29419,24176,8454,232,11113,91,29657,111,43,139,69,1118,29658,3598,659,2218,29660,10534,13109,6035,2217,29661,102,29387],"class_list":["post-30799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-businesses","tag-closures","tag-crisps","tag-economic","tag-eves","tag-factories","tag-factory","tag-go","tag-hundreds","tag-including","tag-jobs","tag-kitchen","tag-nelson","tag-nelsons","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-proper","tag-proposing","tag-retailer","tag-sawmill","tag-sealord","tag-see","tag-several","tag-things","tag-valley","tag-vanish","tag-with","tag-woes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}