Presidents welcome
President Gavin welcomed members to the meeting and a special welcome was given to our guest speaker Shane Lodge.
In President's Time:
President Gavin noted the improved attendance tonight.
With five member 'no shows' last week, a further reminder that it was important Members rostered for a meeting duty did attend, or please arrange a replacement person to take over your duties.
Please use the link within the Bulletin or the Club website Calendar to register an Apology or attendance. If you need help doing this, ask one of the Directors.
Four members have volunteered to help with the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness (RYDA) programme planned for Wednesday, 3 August, at Levels Raceway – thank you.
Due to significant member attrition, R.I. and Rotary Zone 8 (Australia, N.Z. and the Pacific) are proposing a "regionalisation Pilot" that, if endorsed by Clubs, will look at means to improve or simplify governance and grow club Members.
Gavin plans to have Nicki Donkers back to speak to us about how she recently helped the Temuka Geraldine Rotary Club with a rebirth, from which they hope to join up ten new members
3 Minute Speaker
MIA
The robbery
Sargent David Hewson welcomed Corporal Colin Clemens with a Happy Birthday sing-song, then, after regaling us with his travels to the Far North, cleverly extracted fines with tales of misdemeanours. A final collect from all gumboot wearers after the origin of the Gum Boot was explained, courtesy of the Kauri Gum Diggers.
The giving
Barrie Payne won the raffle once again!
Guest Speaker
Noel Crawford introduced Shane Lodge, who is the Regulatory, Quality, Stakeholder & Environmental Manager (and main farmer Supplier point of contact) for Oceania Dairy Ltd (ODL). He graduated from Lincoln University with a BSc and is a Judicial and Ministerial Justice of the Peace. He started his career in 1982 with MAF as Farm Area Advisor for the South Island. Shane joined Oceania at its inception in 2013 following a similar role at N.Z. Dairies Ltd. His previous roles included Executive Director of the Dairy Companies Assn and senior roles at Fonterra from its inception, the N.Z. Dairy Group and the S.I. Dairy Co-operative.
Shane walked us through some fascinating facts and figures for Oceania Dairy.
ODL is owned by the Chinese company Yili. Their marketing strategy is built around controlling their products from farm to consumer. Yili, the 5th largest dairy company in the world, own 84 Dairy factories in China. In 2014 they were entirely home market focussed but now export to 65 countries. Yili aspires to be the world's largest Diary company by 2030.
They also now own the Westland Dairy plant in Hokitika after this co-operative needed to recapitalise to survive.
ODL was their first plant outside of China; it is situated on 278 ha of land at Morven, north of Glenavy, beside SH1 and established with a $236M investment in 2013, producing its first milk powder on 5 August 2014. The total investment to date with the plant establishment is $475M, and a further $200m will be spent in the future.
- 400 staff paid $28M P.A.; numbers will increase further as the site develops, including just 6 Yili Chinese staff, N.Z. Chinese who speak mandarin and a number of Indians, especially in the Lab.
- Produce 47,000 tonnes of milk powder per annum
- Speciality milk powders
- Infant milk formula
- Anhydrous Milk Fat (AMF)
- Ultra-High Temperature Milk (UHT) which keeps without refrigeration
- A Blending and Canning plant, Pouch Line (1kg powder sachets), UHT plant, Dry Store and Laboratory
- 77 farmer suppliers, all within a 50km radius of the site
- Farmers paid the Fonterra price plus 10c/litre premium
- 272M litres of milk collected per annum with eight tanker trucks and trailers supplied by Hilton Haulage
- Milk supply is highly regulated – e.g. animal health & welfare, product quality, environmental and food safety standards
- Wastewater is currently spray irrigated onto their 278 ha site; an ocean outfall is planned to cope with the plant's future development. The wastewater is extremely clean and looks just like fresh water.
VoT: John Keenan proposed the vote of thanks.
Gavin closed the meeting with a reminder to members of next week's roster, as noted below.