Barker’s expanding its South Canterbury fruit factory amid discharge consenting challenges

Barker Fruit Processors is expanding its Pleasant Valley factory near Geraldine. Photo / RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

By Monique Steele of RNZ

Iconic South Canterbury fruit company Barker Fruit Processors’ $60 million factory expansion will come to fruition later this year, in efforts to “future-proof” the growing business.

The company, owned by the Andros Group in France, is expanding its Pleasant Valley factory near Geraldine, adding new warehouses and another production line for products such as its chutneys, jams, and sauces.

With the new build nearing completion, production is expected to begin there shortly before Christmas.

Operations manager Bill Pridham said the expansion would help double production there over the next few decades.

“The main point for us is around ensuring that Barker’s is set up and ready for the future in South Canterbury, and to provide security to our current staff,” he said.

“There’ll be a few new job opportunities as well, which is great.”

Pridham said the factory produced hundreds of different products each year, mostly for the domestic market, but exports, largely to Australia, made up about 20% of the business.

It employed up to 280 staff during the summer peak across the factory and sales, and marketing from Auckland.

Consenting issues in Geraldine

The company held various active resource consents for discharging contaminants on to land and to air, but the Canterbury Regional Council/Environment Canterbury (ECan) recently investigated the company for wastewater discharge breaches.

The Department of Conservation (DoC) raised environmental concerns about the factory’s discharge on to a nearby conservation reserve near the Hae Hae Te Moana River.

The company spent $1.4m on a 14ha site next door to the factory, according to the Overseas Investment Office.

Pridham said this purchase was about future-proofing its irrigation and wastewater systems.

“Historically, we’ve irrigated on to a block south of the factory, DoC land where historically it was something that had low conservational value. That has recently changed, so we’ve looked for an alternative there.

“So that’s why we’ve been looking at this other bit of land.”

He said Barker’s was planning to micro-irrigate to match the soil’s ability to absorb and treat the water, a system which would “help future-proof the business as we grow”.

“We’re looking at changing our irrigation system there, allowing us to irrigate all year round, where historically we’d irrigate only in the drier months.

“We are working through that consent for the wastewater discharge with ECan, and providing them the information they need to give them assurance of our process and how we’re planning to approach it.”

Environment Canterbury’s consents planning manager, Henry Winchester, said a new consent application for discharge was on “hold” while more information was sought from the applicant.

“The new application from Barker’s is to discharge factory wastewater to a new area of land which is partly forestry and partly pasture,” Winchester said.

“Barker’s isn’t proposing to increase the amount of wastewater generated, and we’re following the consent process in the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) to ensure that effects are appropriately managed.

“We continue to work with Barker’s to ensure that the regulatory process is being followed.”

Winchester said its audit continued.

– RNZ