COMMENT
Where have all the dairy factories gone?
Not today's monoliths now chugging through 70 million litres of milk a day as nearly six million cows around the country hit peak production. It's the factories of days gone by that take my interest. Driving down back-country roads on a sunny spring day
to spy them is a real pleasure.
It could prove a strangely addictive pastime - collecting dairy factory sightings, noting their name and condition, wondering about the lives led in and around them in their heyday.
There are plenty to collect in many regions.
Springfield, near Dunedin, claims the first dairy factory: the Otago Peninsula Cheese Factory, built in 1871.
By 1894 there were 124 factories around the country and in 1900 the Department of Agriculture reported 178 creameries, 88 cheese factories and 442 private dairies. Cheese factories, alone, grew from 293 in 1914 to 402 in 1918 and are believed to have peaked in 1925 at 510.
Dairy heartlands such as Waikato and Taranaki were dotted with little factories about 21km apart - a round trip of 21km being as much as a horse and cart laden with milk cans could manage.
At the turn of the 20th century the money was in cream - one-tenth of the milk - but it had to be carted to the factory for skimming. Farmers returned home with the whey for their pigs.
The arrival of the home cream separator allowed farms and factories to expand their boundaries because farmers could separate the cream at home and take a much lighter load along the poor roads.
Better roads and the arrival of the milk tanker in the 1950s meant dairy farming could spread further from bigger factories.
Today, it's mostly the buildings of later, more substantial companies that still stand in small towns, hamlets or wide-open spaces.
Some still bear fading names that were the pride of the district. The original purpose of others is recognisable but their names have disappeared under the paint of fresh enterprises.
The old Newstead factory, near Hamilton, looks smart in blue and white paint and is home to a garage and other light industry. Nearby, the much bigger Matangi factory, a technical triumph when built in 1918 but closed in 1984, has long housed a landscape gardening business among its few tenants. There's plenty of room for more.
Almost in sight of Fonterra's huge Hautapu factory, near Cambridge, is the faded Bruntwood factory. Half a dozen houses still cluster around the site that is used in part for light manufacturing.
On the other side of the Hautapu factory is the smart Fencourt factory used now as a depot by the Majestic Horse Float company.
A taxidermist has set up shop in the dusty brown Monovale building, between Cambridge and Te Awamutu, and for 20 years agricultural contractor Ross Paton has based his office in the old Cambridge co-op factory.
A few kilometres down the road, the Rotorangi factory has no tenants and is for sale - with three houses and 1.2 hectares of grazing.
North of Hamilton, the former Gordonton factory is now a fruit and vegetable shop and the Komakarau site has been made famous as a sweetmaker and tourist attraction, Candyland.
The enterprise of those recycling discarded dairy factories continues around the countryside. Wilderness Gems, otherwise known as the rock shop, inhabits Ngatea's old factory on the Hauraki Plains.
The Waitakaruru factory, closed in 1981, saw new life as a place to sterilise peat. Chickens moved in to Rukuhia, fertiliser took up residence at Te Poi, and diners at Katikati in the Forta Leza restaurant.
Few, if any, have found new life closely associated with the old.
Former National Party deputy leader Wyatt Creech is to launch the Open Country Cheese Company next year at Waharoa, home to one of the biggest and most recently abandoned factories. But the company will have a new factory on 8ha next to the old building.
The vandalised Waharoa factory looks like Dresden after World War II, says Creech who understands it is to be demolished.
Still, there's plenty of others. Sightings for this newfound rural ramble are welcomed.
* Email Philippa Stevenson
COMMENT
Where have all the dairy factories gone?
Not today's monoliths now chugging through 70 million litres of milk a day as nearly six million cows around the country hit peak production. It's the factories of days gone by that take my interest. Driving down back-country roads on a sunny spring day
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