Silver Fern Farms

Silver Fern Farms is expanding its product range in the United Kingdom, after a successful launch for branded lamb into giant supermarket chain Tesco.

Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper has resigned as a director of Beef and Lamb New Zealand and the New Zealand Meat Board, questioning Beef and Lamb's future role and relevance.

Silver Fern Farms has reported a remarkable turnaround in fortunes, recording an operating surplus of $40.6 million for the year ended September 30, on turnover of $2.1 billion - from the previous year's $8 million loss on turnover of $1.8 billion.

A project, managed by Silver Fern Farms (UK), has been launched in the United Kingdom and New Zealand to assess how software can be used to improve grassland management on livestock farms.

A freight-management company has been launched by Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms, servicing about one third of all containers leaving New Zealand.

Two South Island Silver Fern Farms meat plants will begin processing bobby calves seven days a week during the peak of the season this year.

Silver Fern Farms has increased its presence in the beef processing sector with the purchase of a a plant in Waikato, while also announcing plans to build a high-tech beef processing plant on its nearby Te Aroha site.

Farmers of fine wool appear to be flocking to support a new meat marketing structure which its promoters say could be a blueprint for the wider meat industry.

About 160 of the 350 workers at Silver Fern Farms' Waikato beef slaughter plant at Te Aroha are likely to only be paid a minimum wage until Christmas.

Last month's storm seems not only to have killed more than a million lambs, but also taken with it the hope for more orderly behaviour by farmers and the meat industry.