Meat plant to receive $2m upgrade

Alliance Group's Pukeuri plant. Photo / Supplied

A $2 million upgrade of the Alliance Group's Pukeuri meat plant, just north of Oamaru, will improve both health and safety and efficiency at the plant, the group's chief executive says.

In a statement issued yesterday, David Surveyor said the upgrade at the plant would "ultimately lift returns to our farmer shareholders".

Alliance is a 100% New Zealand farmer-owned co-operative.

The project would re-configure the plant's beef slaughter chain to create "a more comfortable and ergonomically designed environment for staff and reduce the risk of injury during processing operations", yesterday's statement said.

It would also improve efficiency by "enabling increased throughputs and facilitate the recovery of additional head meats".

The investment would ensure the group's red meat production remained competitive on a global scale, Mr Surveyor said.

"This investment also reflects our commitment to our eight processing plants from Lorneville near Invercargill to Dannevirke in the southern Hawkes Bay," Mr Surveyor said.

The project was part of Alliance's Manufacturing Excellence programme, which also prompted the announcement last month of a $10.6million investment at the group's Dannevirke plant, he said.

The custom-built primal/middle cutting technology featured an X-ray unit which analysed each carcass and instructed the two cutting machines where to cut.

The technology was already in place at the company's Smithfield plant in Timaru and the Pukeuri plant.

A spokesman for the company said this project was "in no way related" to the workplace accident at the Smithfield plant on March 17, in which an employee's hand was cut off.