Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper told shareholders of the wage freeze at this week's annual meeting in response to questions about why executives got a pay rise and other staff did not.
Some shareholders criticised Mr Cooper's salary, which was reported in the company's annual report as between about $860,000 and $870,000, an increase of $250,000 on the previous corresponding period.
Chairman Eoin Garden defended his chief executive's position, saying media reports had failed to state that his salary was a mix of base annual salary for the 2008-09 financial year and performance-related compensation for the previous year.
The board had employed independent advisers to determine a suitable salary level, and the mid-quartile of the range recommended was chosen.
Mr Garden said SFF had annual turnover of $2 billion and Mr Cooper's leadership had helped return a profit for that year of $52 million and increase shareholder equity 17%.
His average annual wage increase since become chief executive in 2001 was 4%.
Mr Cooper said staff salary increases for the year were possible and might be funded out of savings from Project Optimal, in which all parts of the business were asked to streamline overheads and ensure each unit used resources efficiently.
An example of savings was changing part of the packaging used in containers to carboard, from polystyrene which cost the company about $300,000 a year plus a disposal cost in some markets.
Mr Garden said the change in materials saved the company about $250,000 a year.
SFF has also welcomed news the Government has approved a national animal identification and traceability (Nait) scheme for cattle and deer from October 2011.
Mr Cooper said it meant New Zealand had a robust traceability scheme should an animal-health issue arise.
Electronic tags also had production benefits for farmers, he said.
SFF was involved in a trial with farmers who have tagged 200,000 lambs and Mr Cooper said those farmers were impressed with the information they were getting from tracking the growth of their lambs.
