Verkerks selling Canterbury abattoir to Japanese firm for $15m

The Verkerks brand markets salamis and small goods into many New Zealand supermarkets. Photo / RNZ

By Monique Steele of RNZ

Small-goods meat business Verkerks is selling its Mid Canterbury abattoir to a large Japanese meat company for $15 million.

New Zealand-based Japanese subsidiary SFJ Holdings was granted approval by the Overseas Investment Office to acquire the company’s meat processing plant in Ashburton in June, under the Benefit to New Zealand test.

The pending multimillion-dollar sale would include 37ha of land for meat processing and all shares to Ashburton Meat Processors, owned by Verkerks.

The well-known Verkerks brand markets salamis and small goods into many New Zealand supermarkets. Its founder, Aalt Verkerk, started the company, officially named A Verkerk, in 1957.

Before Verkerk’s death in 2012, his daughter, Mary-Anne Mills, was appointed to the helm of the business.

Mills, company owner and plant director, said the sale was still being finalised.

“In quoting my dad, ‘nothing’s sold until the cheque’s cleared in the bank’,” she said.

Mills said business had changed over the years, influencing the decision to sell the plant.

“I suppose we want to focus on our core business,” she said.

Mills said she understood meat processing would continue at the site under the new ownership, and Verkerks’ manufacturing will continue as usual at its Christchurch site.

The Verkerks brand would continue, she said.

In its decision, the OIO said SFJ Holdings planned to expand the plant with a new beef processing chain, which will start processing Wagyu beef.

Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed manufacturer and meat marketer S Foods established its New Zealand business, SFJ Holdings, in April 2019, according to the company register.

S Foods began exporting its Wagyu beef to New Zealand in June 2016.

According to its website, S Foods was established in 1967, has capital of more than $48m and had more than 2400 employees by February this year.

– RNZ