New Zealand King Salmon has purchased an $8.14 million site in Blenheim, as part of it's long-term plan to move some processing operations away from Nelson.
The company announced the purchase at the Cloudy Bay Business Park this week, with chief executive Carl Carrington assuring Nelson employees that any changes would be at least three years away.
Carl says the purchase is a step in plans to achieve growth for the company, as it scales up salmon farming and production when the new Blue Endeavour open ocean farm is operational.
Carl says there are no immediate or near-term impacts on the company’s Nelson-based factory operations and staffing. Any potential changes are at least three years away – as communicated to employees by email and staff meetings earlier this week.
“While we need to develop a new processing site that is fit for our future, our Nelson infrastructure will continue to be important to NZ King Salmon, and to Nelson.
“Nelson is the base for our research and development, corporate functions and will continue to host some factory processing operations,” he says.
The move is the third in a series of blows for the region's employment with announcements that Eves Valley sawmill will close and a proposal from Sealord that would see the closure of it's coated products factory affecting a combined 220 jobs.
“Our Nelson infrastructure is the heart of our research, development and innovation and will continue to be so – playing a key role in strengthening the aquaculture sector,” Carl says.
He says a thorough process was undertaken over more than two years to assess and undertake due diligence for potential new factory sites – in Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough. The Cloudy Bay site was assessed as being the most viable.
The company does not operate any fish farms in Nelson, so the move brings the NZX-listed company closer to its farms and fish in the Marlborough Sounds, and to State Highway 1 and its access to international airports from where NZ King Salmon’s products are distributed around the world.
Having primary processing operations based in Blenheim will also take a lot of trucks off the road, says Carl.
“We truck fish from Marlborough over the Whangamoa Hill to Nelson to be processed, and then back over the hill to be distributed. Having our primary processing operations in Blenheim takes a lot of truck movements off the road and better future-proofs our operations to be more resilient to extreme weather events, earthquakes and other things that affect road transport.”
Carl emphasises that NZ King Salmon is a ‘Top of the South’ success story – with benefits extended across the region.
“We are a proud Te Tauihu company. This purchase and eventual start of factory operations from Blenheim will strengthen our connection to Marlborough while we continue a range of important functions in Nelson,” he says.
“Once we are up and running in Blenheim, we will continue to balance operations across all sites – from our hatchery in Tasman, freshwater operations in Canterbury, our processing and key corporate functions in Nelson and our scaled-up processing in Blenheim.”
