Company manager and design engineer Ian Marsh said it took some time, but he finally determined the request for a quote to build stock crates to be carried on an ocean ferry came from the Falkland Islands.
The client had found details about Sutton Crates on the Internet.
A year of communication followed, determining what the client needed, an exchange of prototypes and concepts and the final plans.
A team of four or five men took nine months to build the six crates in a contract worth about $500,000.
Mr Marsh said each crate held about 180 sheep or nine or 10 cattle, and was designed to be carried on a new ferry service between some of the 770 islands in the Falklands group.
The ferry also carts sheep and cattle from the islands to the meat works at the capital, Port Stanley.
The crates operate identically to those used by New Zealand truck operators, but Mr Marsh said they had to be modified for the ferry.
They were the same size as 6m-long containers and secured to the deck by twist locks.
Stock are loaded through a bow door into the crates directly off the wharf or beach.
When the ferry reaches the main port, the loaded crates are lifted off the ferry and on to a truck.
The design also had to meet European Union animal welfare livestock requirements for feed troughs, effluent holding tanks and self-washing facilities.
The crates were designed to collapse for ease of transporting to the islands, saving about $36,000 in shipping costs.
Mr Marsh said the British Government was paying for the crates but input into the design had come from the local meat works and the Falkland Islands Development Corporation.
He will travel to the islands later this year to oversee their delivery. He hoped the contract would result in further orders.
Sutton Crates is a division of Rinnon Products.
The Falkland Islands, 480km off the coast of Argentina, has a population of about 3000 and about 600,000 sheep.
Wool, meat, fishing and tourism are the main industries.
