Two mills belonging to Japanese-owned Juken New Zealand are facing uncertain futures, with the company looking to sell up.<\/p>\n
It said it was because of a combination of ongoing structural and market pressures affecting operations, including declining demand in key export markets.<\/p>\n
It also singled out higher operating costs.<\/p>\n
Juken New Zealand said it had been working over several years to improve the finances of its two Kait\u0101ia sites but had not been able to make them sustainable.<\/p>\n
Mill owner Juken NZ said the operations that employed about200 people weren\u2019t currently sustainable. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Kait\u0101ia has about 6000 people and the two mills employ more than 200 people.<\/p>\n
Resident and former editor of the Northland Age newspaper Peter Jackson said nobody saw the development coming.<\/p>\n
“There would be massive unemployment, there would be shop closures, there would be all sorts of financial fallout,” he said if closures happened.<\/p>\n
“I’d hate to think what the outcome would be but it would be a blow to the heart of Kait\u0101ia, it really would.”<\/p>\n
Jackson said there was not a lot of other work on offer in the town, and no other employer like Juken New Zealand.<\/p>\n
![\"Juken](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/juken-new-zealands-northland-mill-OAJBXAJ76NDJLNXWEKOMFCVVXE.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Juken New Zealand\u2019s Northland Mill (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
“I can remember when Juken came into the picture and people were praying, literally, that they would buy it,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This is part of Kait\u0101ia’s big dream, we were always sold on the idea that forestry was going to be our future … and the fact that a processing plant was built in Kaitaia was regarded as a massive win for this community … and you just sort of think it will always be there.”<\/p>\n
Jackson said an old months-long workers’ strike brought the town to a standstill.<\/p>\n
“No-one paid their bills, there was no money going around, it was a nightmare.”<\/p>\n
The strike was something former publican Dave Collard, who had a tavern nearby, remembered well.<\/p>\n
His premises was used for strike meetings.<\/p>\n
‘Critical’ for town<\/p>\n
Collard said he had served “many, many” Juken timber workers over the years.<\/p>\n
“It’s absolutely critical in terms of the town here,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We have enough challenges up here as it is without one of our biggest employers potentially closing down, I would hate to see something like that, there’s [got] to be an alternative somewhere, or a remedy.<\/p>\n
“You know what is real scary about this is we’re seeing it all over New Zealand, look at the places that have closed up – the frozen veggies people, sawmills, all sorts where people work for years and years and years, it is very much a reality and if we’re not thinking about it I think we’ve got our heads buried in the sand.”<\/p>\n
There has been a raft of other mill closures around the country, with many owners blaming high energy costs.<\/p>\n
The Far North District Council and Northland Regional Council were set to appeal for the government to intervene in Kait\u0101ia.<\/p>\n
![\"Winston](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/winston-peters-says-getting-rid-of-assets-will-not-fix-the-e-WVBG6YLXV5C7RLOSIMOYRR5TK4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Winston Peters (Source: rnz.co.nz)<\/p>\n
“Seriously, we’re going to think about it big time,” New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said at Parliament.<\/p>\n
“Because it’s not the first time we have done that, both Shane Jones and myself, we’ve kept close to that timber mill for a long long time in our political career,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So we’re going to pay attention to it … it is a concern and we’ll look seriously at it.”<\/p>\n
Juken New Zealand said it was looking at whether the two mills could keep operating “under a different structure” which included a sale or a joint venture.<\/p>\n
“We are taking the mills to market to assess whether there is interest from potential buyers,” it said.<\/p>\n
“Our focus is on testing whether there is a viable pathway that would allow the mills to continue operating and to preserve employment where possible.”<\/p>\n
The company said in the meantime operations were continuing as normal at its Kait\u0101ia mills with no immediate changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-time Kait\u0101ia residents say the Far North town would be devastated if its big employer timber mills shut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138,111,43,139,1067,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-358092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-northland","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358092","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=358092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}