The onset of drought conditions in the North Island has seen economic confidence plummet in many regions, according to a Westpac McDermott Miller survey.

Fletcher Building and Goodman Group are planning a $500 million four- to five-building commercial office precinct near Auckland's waterfront, a boss involved in the deal says.

A West Coast farming expert says he is seeing first-hand the pressures being put on farmers battling to combat the effects of the big dry.

Dairy giant Fonterra has launched a "world-first" bottle that it says will protect milk from light and keep it fresher and tasting better for longer.

The drought gripping most of the country is hitting dairy farmers hard, but soaring export prices will partially offset lost production, economists say.

Prices of dairy products surged to the highest in two years in Fonterra's latest Global Dairy Trade auction as drought curtails production in the North Island.

One of the unwritten skills in the job description for being Fonterra's director for Latin America is a tolerance for those important local business lubricants, aguardiente and tequila.

A climate expert believes summers like this one will become the new norm for New Zealand. Droughts have already been declared across much of the North Island.

Kids at Kamo Primary School at the northern end of Whangarei are split down the middle over an offer of free milk from New Zealand's biggest company, Fonterra.

The drought is working its way down the country, and with with no change predicted until at least mid-March, farmers from Northland to Southland are suffering.

Big dry forces stock selloffs, but Aucklanders can still water gardens, wash cars thanks to Waikato River supplies

World dairy prices have surged to the highest since June 2011 with the prospect of New Zealand production curtailed by drought.

The mystery of how 165kg of cocaine was slipped into a New Zealand shipping container of milk powder remains unsolved, according to an official report.

In the fifth straight gain, prices in the latest world dairy auction rose 3.1 per cent overnight, takings prices to their highest level in five months.

Fonterra Cooperative Group, the world's biggest dairy exporter, is playing down reports that China's quarantine administration destroyed three different New Zealand brands of milk powder as being nothing out of the ordinary and part of a regular review.

A secret Auckland Council agenda item has revealed the Wynyard Quarter as a possible site for Fonterra's planned new $100 million campus-style world HQ.

When the Fonterra Shareholders' Fund made its debut on the NZX last December, the co-operative was finally able to put its capital structure on a firm footing.

It's always interesting to see how corporations and governments respond to a food safety crisis, writes Sue Kedgley.

Hot, dry weather has many Bay of Plenty dairy farmers struggling to make ends meet as Tauranga stares down the barrel of the third driest month in living memory.

A New Zealand exporter selling infant formula in China says the latest agricultural chemical issue is a public relations disaster and sales have fallen "to zero".

Traces of a toxic agricultural substance detected in some Fonterra milk powders has international dairy customers asking for answers.