May 8th - Day 2 in New Zealand

        Today we visited Hamilton and saw Keith Vallabh who is a chair on the fresh vegetable product group.  He took us over to meet a friend of his, Bhart Hir Bhana.  He was a producer that grew onions, potatoes, carrots, and Brassicas. The vegetable producer had fifty employees that helped out on the farm. They were all local help. They exported a large majority of their crop, with the rest going to local supermarkets. There are only two supermarket chains here so they pretty much set the price. Also, there are no farm subsidies. This producer sold to the UK, Japan, Europe, Fiji, Hong Kong, and some others. He only had 1500 acres, 1200 of which were owned by him. Here is the kicker, land is worth $100,000 per acre. That means he has $120,000,000 in land!!! That is $108,000,000 in US money! After leaving the vegetable producer, Keith brought us to his farm, a small 50 acre farm that he bought about 25 years ago for $355,000.  It is valued today at $5,000,000. It is for sale, by the way!  All of the New Zealand farmers have an exit strategy as they believe tough times are in the future because government is starting to control the farmers now. They are actually having a meeting next week with legislators on operating farm machinery on public roads.
        We then ate, noticing there is no ketchup in restaurants. It is all tomato paste, which Derek was not a fan of. We then went to the company Gallagher Animal Management Systems. This place was amazing!! This company was the inventor of electric fencers. They are now a $200,000,000 company that makes everything from clothes pins to security systems. They had a molding area where they made everything plastic. Fun fact, all airports in the world have toilet paper holders made by this company. They were contracted by Tork to make them. They made the thing to make the mold, then assembled everything to make a finished product. They even bought cable in bulk, then recoiled it in smaller quantities. There was a sonic welder that welds plastic by sound. We couldn't tour the warehouse because they could send product overseas without going through customs. So they were ultra secure. They make gates for the two major companies in New Zealand. They also did a security system for Buckingham Palace.
       Next we went to Milfos. This company made milking systems. The biggest system was the rotary system which puts a cow on a big carousel and milks them in a circle, so some are always coming on and going off for efficiency. We toured the plant which was a warehouse and assembly plant. They had modern CNC machines, many from the US.  We then went in to the research and development and saw a prototype that goes in the rotary system that cleans pre and post milking.
       After this tour we went to the hotel and out to eat in the lobby. Now it is off to swimming and relaxing after a long and exciting day!

Cheers mate!
Derek St. John
Tasha Laska