Rare Returns: Still chewing over too many meat plants

Silver Fern Farms’ Dan Boulton, ANZCO Foods’ Peter Conley and Alliance Group chair Mark Wynne. (Graphic: NZME)

Mon, 20 Oct 2025

Falling stock numbers and fierce procurement battles are reigniting the red meat sector’s biggest question: how much capacity is too much? In part two of Rare Returns, Riley Kennedy takes a look at the processing sector.Scattered across the country, remnants of New Zealand’s oldest freezing works industry still stand.The remains of the Pātea Freezing Works – shut in the 1980s – can still be seen in the South Taranaki town.Near Christchurch, part of the historic Islington freezing works, first opened in 1889, now sits i...

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