Around 350 mostly fulltime roles would be impacted, including vegetable growers – around 220 of them in Canterbury alone.<\/p>\n
Heinz Wattie\u2019s previously said the decision was not taken lightly, but was a necessary step to position the company for the future.<\/p>\n
Industry group Seed and Grain New Zealand chief executive Sarah Clark said if Wattie\u2019s stopped contracting vegetables from the region, farmers would lose income from both the crop and the seed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Wattie\u2019s proposal is a really big blow for the arable sector as a whole,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral of our members supply pea seeds for sowing to Wattie\u2019s, so the direct impact to our members, the seed companies, of their proposal is that there\u2019ll be less demand for pea seed, and that in turn means fewer contracts for the farmers, the people who are growing those pea seed crops.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark said the decision was \u201cprobably a kick in the guts\u201d for growers, after such a tough season marred by wet weather, causing root disease.<\/p>\n
She said this was worsened by the rapidly increasing cost of fuel and fertiliser, due to the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sector\u2019s having a tough time anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark said there were other pea varieties farmers could incorporate into their crop rotation to plug the pea gap.<\/p>\n
\u201cFarmers will be hit with a difficult decision about how they maintain their other crop rotations, without either the fresh pea crop that they had growing peas for Wattie\u2019s or the crop of peas for seed production.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yeah, it\u2019s a bit of a double whammy for the farmers, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growers facing uncertainty<\/p>\n
Key vegetable growing region Canterbury was also a seed powerhouse, producing more than half the world\u2019s supply of hybrid radish and 40% of the global carrot seed supply, exporting to more than 60 countries.<\/p>\n
Horticulture New Zealand chief executive Kate Scott said growers supplying Wattie\u2019s now faced a great deal of uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is tough news for the New Zealand vegetable sector and for the consumers who rely on locally grown and processed food,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Wattie’s New Zealand corn from Hawke’s Bay. Photo \/ RNZ, Monique Steele<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we recognise this is a decision made within a global business, the consequences are very real here at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott said growers could not keep producing crops without reliable markets for them, which over time would result in fewer vegetables being grown and processed in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be a concerning direction for New Zealand. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn a world where supply chains are increasingly disrupted, and freight costs fluctuate, it makes sense to maintain strong domestic food production.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consultation on Wattie\u2019s proposals will close next Wednesday, March 25. <\/p>\n
New proposals follow earlier cuts to crops<\/p>\n
The company owned by American food giant Kraft Heinz decided to slash some of its crop intake following a review last year, impacting canned peach production, corn, beetroot, and tomatoes.<\/p>\n
In recent years, the company made complaints about reports of cheaper imports being dumped into the New Zealand market to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).<\/p>\n
MBIE carried out a number of investigations over the past decade into dumping claims of various products, including peach products from countries like Greece, Spain, South Africa and China, and potato fries.<\/p>\n
Investigations could result in duties being applied, which happened for preserved peaches from Spain in 2022 and canned peaches from Greece in 2021, among others.<\/p>\n
Owner Kraft Heinz also recently rolled back earlier proposals to split up the business, which it told RNZ in September was unrelated to the decision to reduce peach production.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 350 mostly fulltime roles would be impacted, including vegetable growers – around 220 of them in Canterbury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[95,147158,138,124,35702,2082,25822,23361,29391,28205,111,139,69,8258,28206,178828,23359,6923],"class_list":["post-333534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-and","tag-arable","tag-business","tag-could","tag-exit","tag-for","tag-frozen","tag-growers","tag-mean","tag-monique","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-seed","tag-steele","tag-veg","tag-watties","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333534","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=333534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}