Trevor Lock heads Food Waikato, a new dairy colostrum processing venture at the Waikato Innovation Park.
Trevor Lock heads Food Waikato, a new dairy colostrum processing venture at the Waikato Innovation Park.
A dairy scientist self-dubbed “the father of colostrum” is back in business with big therapeutics production plans for the first form of maternal milk after serving a prison sentence for fraud.
Trevor Lock has been appointed chief executive of Food Waikato, a milk drying plant atWaikato Innovation Park, formerly owned by Hamilton City Council and supported by Callaghan Innovation for the use of commercial dairy processors.
The site’s assets were bought late last year by health products export marketer New Image Group, which Lock said approached him to make colostrum products.
Nutrient-dense and high in antibodies and antioxidants, colostrum from cows is an established export business for New Image. Lock, who has a master’s degree in biotechnology, said he had “a mandate to grow a colostrum business” at the site.
He was imprisoned in 2017 after being found guilty by a judge of 20 fraud charges, following an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into his activities with companies Nubiotics and Nu-brands. He was jailed for six years for fraudulently using customer funds for personal and business expenses.
In July 2019 he asked the Court of Appeal for a retrial, claiming his innocence and a miscarriage of justice. The Court of Appeal dismissed Lock’s challenge against the convictions but it did allow an appeal, in part, of his six-year sentence. The court said his cumulative sentence on the charges of providing false information to the SFO could be served concurrently with three other charges resulting in a sentence of five-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.
Lock, who raised the subject of his convictions immediately on speaking to the Herald, said he was equally upfront with dairy farmers he met when sourcing colostrum supply in the Waikato. He said he had no access to the financial workings of the plant or company.
He said at this stage, Food Waikato, which has 16 staff, was drying colostrum for New Image but after a planned major upgrade to technology ahead of “any other plant in the Southern Hemisphere”, it would produce a range of colostrum-based products, including protein concentrates and butter.
Hamilton City Council, which founded the Innovation Park plant in 2012 with support from Callaghan Innovation, said New Image purchased the plant for $350,000. The council’s share was $305,000, a spokesman said. Lock said to replace the plant, which was on the brink of being mothballed, would cost $30 million-$35m.
Calves must have colostrum milk in the first 24 hours of life to survive. Photo / John Stone
Promotional material for the new Food Waikato venture said New Image, which focuses on gut health, was the first New Zealand company to commercialise colostrum products, which are sold through a multi-level marketing model.
Lock’s interest in the benefits cow colostrum may hold for humans started 26 years ago when he was appointed nutraceuticals development manager for New Zealand’s then-biggest dairy company, Dairy Group. In 2001 it was rolled into the industry mega-merger that created Fonterra.
Colostrum was being sourced from five farms in the greater Waikato and the company was on the hunt for more suppliers, he said.
It had no interest in making branded infant formula.
“We bought this plant to make colostrum. It’s a lifelong passion for both Graeme Clegg [owner of New Image] and me. We say colostrum heals and repairs the gut.”
Lock said the company has not done clinical trials on colostrum but for processing and manufacturing it required certification from the Ministry for Primary Industries.
Meanwhile, the plant had been assisting sheep and goat milk farmers left high and dry by the slump in their previously flourishing Chinese export market by processing their milk.
The company had also secured a “major” contract to supply a goat milk-based adult nutritional supplement to China, Lock said.
The product would be supplied to a New Zealand company that had identified a new sales channel in China. It would be canned at New Image’s manufacturing site at Paerāta, Auckland, said Lock.
Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the $26 billion dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.
