Olivado general manager Sarah Nicholls said he would have one more operation on Monday to close the wound and was expected to leave hospital later next week. He would need up to two weeks recovery at home in Kenya before he could fly back to Kerikeri. He had told her he was being looked after by great medical staff and that his wife was a rock.
He was expected to make a full recovery.
Mr McLaren worked as operations manager at the company's Kerikeri and Kenya factories, changing location according to the avocado season. There had been no discussion yet about whether he would return to Kenya, Ms Nicholls said.
''Our priority is get him well, get him home, then get him back to work in Kerikeri first. He's not the type of bloke who'll want to sit around.''
Olivado owner/chief executive Gary Hannam, from Maungakaramea, has visited Mr McLaren in hospital.
It is not the first time Olivado employees have been caught up in tragedy in Kenya.
In 2007, when the company was setting up its factory outside Nairobi, robbers armed with metal bars and a machete forced their way into the company's supposedly secure apartment and demanded money.
Engineer Phil Civil, of Kerikeri, and Ray Kensington, of Whananaki, were blindfolded and bound with belts and wire coathangers while a colleague, 76-year-old Julian Nathan, was forced into a another room and beaten to death.
Mr Civil told the Advocate he was certain he too would die.
Mr Hannam said the apartment safe had held about $2000. He believed the building's guards had colluded with the intruders.
Olivado was founded in Kerikeri in 1999 and expanded to Kenya when Australasian orchards could not meet its demand for avocados. The company retains a production plant on Sandys Rd, off State Highway 10.
Mr Hannam, a former Whangarei Boys' High pupil, was the co-producer of the movie The World's Fastest Indian.
