\u201cThe main point for us is around ensuring that Barker\u2019s is set up and ready for the future in South Canterbury, and to provide security to our current staff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019ll be a few new job opportunities as well, which is great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pridham said the factory produced hundreds of different products each year, mostly for the domestic market, but exports, largely to Australia, made up about 20% of the business.<\/p>\n
It employed up to 280 staff during the summer peak across the factory and sales, and marketing from Auckland.<\/p>\n
Consenting issues in Geraldine<\/p>\n
The company held various active resource consents for discharging contaminants on to land and to air, but the Canterbury Regional Council\/Environment Canterbury (ECan) recently investigated the company for wastewater discharge breaches.<\/p>\n
The Department of Conservation (DoC) raised environmental concerns about the factory\u2019s discharge on to a nearby conservation reserve near the Hae Hae Te Moana River.<\/p>\n
The company spent $1.4m on a 14ha site next door to the factory, according to the Overseas Investment Office.<\/p>\n
Pridham said this purchase was about future-proofing its irrigation and wastewater systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorically, we\u2019ve irrigated on to a block south of the factory, DoC land where historically it was something that had low conservational value. That has recently changed, so we\u2019ve looked for an alternative there. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s why we\u2019ve been looking at this other bit of land.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Barker\u2019s was planning to micro-irrigate to match the soil\u2019s ability to absorb and treat the water, a system which would \u201chelp future-proof the business as we grow\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking at changing our irrigation system there, allowing us to irrigate all year round, where historically we\u2019d irrigate only in the drier months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working through that consent for the wastewater discharge with ECan, and providing them the information they need to give them assurance of our process and how we\u2019re planning to approach it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Environment Canterbury\u2019s consents planning manager, Henry Winchester, said a new consent application for discharge was on \u201chold\u201d while more information was sought from the applicant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new application from Barker\u2019s is to discharge factory wastewater to a new area of land which is partly forestry and partly pasture,\u201d Winchester said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarker\u2019s isn\u2019t proposing to increase the amount of wastewater generated, and we\u2019re following the consent process in the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) to ensure that effects are appropriately managed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to work with Barker\u2019s to ensure that the regulatory process is being followed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winchester said its audit continued.<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe main point for us is around ensuring that Barker\u2019s is set up and ready for the future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[534,63771,8126,9084,63772,43941,44934,13741,2065,42,302,28205,43,1240,28206,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-83251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-amid","tag-barkers","tag-canterbury","tag-challenges","tag-consenting","tag-discharge","tag-expanding","tag-factory","tag-fruit","tag-headlines","tag-its","tag-monique","tag-news","tag-south","tag-steele","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83251","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=83251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}