Change at helm for Northland service stations

Northland dairy farmers have sold their service stations, but will still be able to book up fuel purchases and have the cost deducted from their milk cheques for a few years yet.
Garry Hannam, who has been general manager of the Whangarei-based Fonterra subsidiary NDS Fuel for 11 years, bought the business from his employer last week.
He paid an undisclosed sum for the firm's 11 service stations between Dairy Flat and Kaitaia and two Rockgas supply centres in Whangarei.
Mr Hannam said Fonterra suppliers would be able to continue having their monthly fuel account payments automatically deducted from their milk cheques for at least the next five years.
He wanted to continue NDS Fuel's special relationship with dairy farmers "who have been the backbone of our business". Mr Hannam, 61, was a regional manager for Caltex in Auckland before he moved to Pataua South and took the helm at NDS Fuel in 1994.
At that stage the firm had about 40 staff at four or five service stations.
Today it has about 180 staff running Caltex service stations at Dairy Flat, Wellsford, Dargaville, Tarewa Rd and Western Hills Dr in Whangarei, Waitangi, Kerikeri and Kaitaia; GAS stations at Tikipunga and Parua Bay; a Mobil station at Kawakawa; and the two Rockgas supply centres in Whangarei.
Mr Hannam was pleased with his purchase.
"It's been a long time in the cooking but we finally got it past the post," he said.
He was particularly satisfied to have bought NDS Fuel in its entirity, predicting the company would have been broken up if he had been outbid by an oil company.
Fonterra Enterprises general manager John Lea said it made sense for Fonterra to concentrate its retail activities in areas more closely connected to the farm.
"Garry has a long history with the company, which makes him an ideal person to take the business forward. We wish him every success," he said.
It is understood the service station business started about 1923 when the former Whangarei Co-operative Dairy Company had a Texeco licence and used to import lighting kerosene and later petrol which dairy farmers bought along with other goods from the company's general store.
Mr Lea said the service stations used to be part of the rural supplies business for the dairy industry in Northland, but since the stations became a stand-alone company, they had come under scrutiny as Fonterra looked to divest itself of non-core assets.