The Dunedin-based meat processing and marketing co-operative is now known as Silver Fern Farms.
The company has adopted the name of one of its brands in a move chief executive Keith Cooper said was part of an overall strategy to improve its marketing.
"It is a critical ingredient to our evolution into a fully integrated marketing company investing in consumer products that will differentiate us and add value to suppliers, staff and customers."
Mr Cooper recently told farmers that to customers, company names such as PPCS were little more than letters of the alphabet.
The name Silver Fern Farms was more aligned with the company's focus on marketing products in a form demanded by modern, affluent customers.
"This isn't just flavour of the month. We are investing across the supply chain to ensure that our brand becomes the premium New Zealand international meat brand backed by our guarantee of New Zealand quality," he said.
Rebranding was also part of its "right-size" strategy, a plan designed to connect consumers with suppliers, to supply product required by consumers when they wanted it and to match processing capacity with stock supply.
PPCS was formed as a marketing company in 1947, when it was known as Primary Producers Co-operative Society (Otago) Ltd.
In a practice known as toll processing, it contracted meat processing companies to process stock on its behalf, which it would then market through its own network to its own clients.
Mr Cooper said it became obvious the company needed its own processing capability to be able to control its own destiny, which was why it bought in 1982 49% of the publicly listed Canterbury Frozen Meat Ltd.
The upheaval in the meat industry in 1988 saw it buy the former Waitaki plants Finegand and Marlborough and Waitaki's closed works at Burnside and Islington.
At the time, PPCS was still using toll processors, of which Waitaki was a major client.
Through the purchase of small operators PPCS continued to grow until 2001, when it launched a major takeover of Richmond, which it said was needed to supply lamb all year round.
In 2004, it bought the Hawkes Bay company outright.
Falling sheep and deer numbers in the past eight months had forced it to close the Oringi lamb works in Hawkes Bay, deer processing plants at Burnside and in the Waikato and a lambskin processing facility in South Otago.
Mr Cooper said the name change was also part of its push towards innovation.
"Internationally, we are facing up to and investing in processing innovations and marketing to adapt to changed eating habits, size of eating portions and demand for more chilled products rather than frozen."
