New Gisborne concrete plant owners bringing it into local hands

Manager Joe Takarangi (left) with new Allied Concrete owners Rebecca and Derek Watson, owners of Ritchie Civil. They have rebranded as East Coast Concrete. Photo / James Pocock

A couple’s purchase of one of Gisborne’s two concrete plants brings it into local hands and will ensure it keeps serving the community.

Owners of civil contracting company Ritchie Civil, Derek and Rebecca Watson, bought the ready mix concrete plant on Grey St - formerly owned by South Island-based joint venture AML Limited.

The official takeover was on October 14, with operations continuing under the new name East Coast Concrete Ltd.

Derek Watson said Ritchie Civil was a big user of concrete, so when they got an email late last year about Allied Concrete Limited and Holcim New Zealand Limited de-merging AML, they saw it as an opportunity.

“We saw that the Gisborne plant, along with Whanganui and the shingle plant in Nūaka, appeared to be a little bit in limbo,” Watson said.

“From there we made some inquiries and found out it was going to be for sale.”

There are only two concrete plants in Gisborne, the other being Aitken’s Concrete owned by Fletcher Industries through Firth Concrete.

Watson said there was a risk that one of Gisborne’s two concrete plants would shut down and he and Rebecca believed the business meshed well with their own so they decided to buy it and prevent “a huge loss to Gisborne”.

“We supply our own concrete but there is no favouritism. We just get in the queue with all the other customers.”

The eight employees of the plant have all been re-employed under the new locally based ownership.

Rebecca Watson said one of the truck drivers had been with the plant for 40 years, through three different owners now, while one concrete batcher had been with the plant for 30 years.

“The batcher who has been here for 30 years comes in part-time when you need him because he knows all the ins-and-outs of the batch [plant] and its little quirks. It is really good having those continuous employees.”

When deciding on a new name, Derek Watson said: "We wanted to make it local and to represent the area that we would be servicing more than anything”. Photo / James Pocock

Derek Watson said his family were originally from Wairoa and his grandfather’s brother owned a concrete business.

“They used to make things like fence posts, troughs, tanks, power poles, all that sort of stuff, and they had ready mix concrete as well. My father, he was farming with his father, and he came off the farm and ended up acquiring the ready mix concrete part [of the business].”

“That is where I grew up on my secondary school holidays - on concrete trucks batching concrete.”

Eventually he entered civil engineering, working for Brian Perry Civil, Fletchers, Fulton Hogan and East Coast Contractors.

He met Rebecca while working for Brian Perry Civil building the Wharf 8 shipping port at Eastland Port in the late 1990s.

The plant the Watsons have bought has operated for more than 60 years - since 1962 when it opened as Mobile Concrete - but they have plans to build a new plant in about a year on a site yet to be finalised.

“There is nothing wrong with the concrete [the plant] makes. It is just that it does have its little quirks and can break down at the wrong time, which is not helpful for customers, so we are just looking to modernise and become a bit more efficient,” he said.

“In 1962 it was probably an ideal place for a concrete plant - not too many neighbours - but in 2024 she is a bit different. You’ve got nice parks over the creek, you’ve got houses, you’ve got a waterway, which people are more conscious of looking after.”

Watson said they would soon get a more environmentally friendly type of concrete in Gisborne, known as eco-Max low-carbon concrete, produced by recycling a byproduct of the steel manufacturing process from the slag.

James Pocock joined the Gisborne Herald as chief reporter in 2024 after covering environmental, local government and post-cyclone issues in Hawke’s Bay. He has a keen interest in finding the bigger picture in research and making it more accessible to audiences. He lives near Gisborne. james.pocock@nzme.co.nz.