{"id":400910,"date":"2026-04-28T03:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T03:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/400910\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T03:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T03:20:11","slug":"parliamentary-briefing-launched-into-mccain-and-heinz-watties-plant-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/400910\/","title":{"rendered":"Parliamentary briefing launched into McCain and Heinz Wattie\u2019s plant closures"},"content":{"rendered":"

The confirmation came three days after McCain announced it would shut its Hastings vegetable processing plant in 2027<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Omahu Rd plant processed more than 50,000 tonnes of vegetables annually and employed 200 people, according to Federated Farmers.<\/p>\n

At the time, Green MP Steve Abel called for an inquiry into the impending closures<\/a> but said it was voted down by National members \u201con the grounds that they hadn\u2019t had a chance to run it by their caucus\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"GreenGreen Party MP Steve Abel, inset, says a briefing into the closure of Heinz Wattie’s and McCain processing plants needs to include impacted communities and businesses, not just government departments. Composite image.<\/p>\n

Abel brought the issue back up last week and National members agreed to a briefing.<\/p>\n

A briefing is a type of inquiry a committee can undertake, giving members the opportunity to inform themselves about topics of interest or concern in the committee\u2019s subject area.<\/p>\n

Abel said the briefing would start immediately, beginning with some expert advice from MPI.<\/p>\n

He said he would push for a more substantive and expansive briefing that included impacted communities and businesses, not just government departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what I would hope that the committee is open to doing because this issue warrants and justifies the more substantive attention of Parliament than it has got today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abel said the committee would meet on Thursday, April 30.<\/p>\n

Two Hawke\u2019s Bay mayors have welcomed the briefing.<\/p>\n

\"CentralCentral Hawke\u2019s Bay mayor Will Foley and Hastings mayor Wendy Schollum welcome the briefing into the McCain and Heinz Wattie’s processing plant closures. Composite image.<\/p>\n

More than 70 growers produce vegetables on contract to these companies in Central Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s mayor, Will Foley, said the briefing should help get to the bottom of why these business decisions are being made and what can be done differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we don\u2019t keep repeating history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastings District Council Mayor Wendy Schollum said several influenced the decisions to close the plants but there was \u201climited visibility of how they come together\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA parliamentary process helps ensure those drivers are properly understood, and whether there are wider implications for the sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both mayors encouraged the committee to ensure it reflected the full extent of impacts across the food production system by hearing from stakeholders, including growers, industry representatives and relevant agencies.<\/p>\n

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The confirmation came three days after McCain announced it would shut its Hastings vegetable processing plant in 2027.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,682,111383,17163,8606,564,1976,174624,68879,296,1743,17250,183707,111,43,139,69,76331,4885,5301,70675,6695,23359,1849],"class_list":["post-400910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-being","tag-briefing","tag-closure","tag-closures","tag-food","tag-hawkes","tag-heinz","tag-impending","tag-into","tag-launched","tag-mayors","tag-mccain","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parliamentary","tag-plant","tag-plants","tag-processing","tag-regions","tag-watties","tag-welcomed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400910","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=400910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}