Whakatu Freezing Works: The history, the industry and the aftermath - in 80,000 words

On the chains and slaughterboards of Whakatu, the Hawke's Bay meatworks that closed in 1986. It is now part of a book by Hawke's Bay historian and agricultural identity Ewan McGregor.

As local historians go, few are more thorough than retired farmer, environmentalist, tree-grower, former harbour board and regional council member, and Federated Farmers provincial president Ewan McGregor.

His latest literary contribution was launched to a gathering of about 100 people in Havelock North on Thursday.

Whakatu – The Farmers’ Works is a history of the Hawke’s Bay Farmers Meat Co and the industry of which it was a vital part. The meatworks between Napier and Hastings closed 38 years ago with devastating effects on a region to which it provided food, employment and a livelihood for many.

Ewan McGregor at the time of the launching of his Hawke's Bay A and P Society history in 2013. More than a decade later he's produced a Hawke's Bay Farmers Meat Co and Whakatu meatworks history, and at the age o 79 says he's got more in him yet. Photo / NZME

McGregor was from time to time a columnist in Hawke’s Bay Today and his latest work is a companion to previous books such as Hawke’s Bay on Show, published in 2013, marking the 150 years of the Hawke’s Bay A&P Society and its annual show, the Price of Success, a history of stock and station agency Williams and Kettle, and Selwyn’s Legacy, a history of Kopanga Station.

He also had a hand in the 2020 publication Fear Not Change, on the life of Hamilton Logan, a retired Hawke’s Bay farmer and A&P society president who died in August, aged 99.

Whakatu was reputed at times to be the biggest meatworks in the world. When it closed on October 10, 1986, it cost Hawke’s Bay 2000 fulltime and seasonal jobs.

Possibly the most outstanding feature of the book is that a lifetime of history has been put together in just three years since the last two longstanding company directors, Andy Train and Michael Hardy, and former company secretary Peter Smith asked McGregor to write the history of the works.

It was comparatively easy meat, for he had already been looking at writing a history of the local meat industry through the depression and the war years, the days when the sheep population was a reputed 70 million in 1982, just four years before the chains ground to a halt, and the aftermath of the closure.

Whakatu – The Farmers’ Works, which runs to about 80,000 words, was a labour of love but certainly not the end of an era for 79-year-old McGregor, who says he’s got “a few books left in me yet”.

He put one on hold to make sure he got Whakatu done and is now working on Climate’s What You Want – Weather’s What You Get, a look at the varying weather events of Hawke’s Bay, inspired by some deep thinking after Cyclone Gabrielle.

The Whakatu book “turned out much to my satisfaction” and, when asked just how many hours of work may have gone into it, he said: “I hate to think.”

It had an initial print run of 300, “but the button’s ready to press if they need more”.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 41 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.