A multimillion-dollar entity, formed through the merger of the co-products businesses of Wallace Corporation and Farm Brands, will also acquire the assets and business of Dunedin-based rendering business Keep It Clean.
The merger, which has formed Wallace Group Ltd Partnership, aimed to optimise its processing capability, including developing higher-value finished products, and establish an expanded casualty cow collective service in the South Island, a statement said.
Keep It Clean has a rendering plant at Abbotsford which processes mainly deer material, casualty stock and shop waste collected from butcheries, supermarkets, home kill operators and small meat processors.
It also operates a specialist bone rendering plant and supplies finished rendered products, including meat and bone meal, deer meal and inedible tallow.
Under the terms of the merger, Auckland-based Farm Brands Ltd, owned by Modena Investments (NZ), contributed rendering plants at Washdyke, near Timaru, which processed beef and sheep material, as well as casualty stock, and Silverstream (Mosgiel), which processed beef material, and an export trading business based in Auckland focused primarily on protein meals and tallows.
Wallace Corporation contributed its Waitoa industrial site and businesses, including the tannery, rendering plant and compost business, a casualty collection centre in Northland, its Feilding operation and Hororata rendering plant.
All staff were being transferred to Wallace Group employment.
Farm Brands' warehouse and distribution investment in IQI (US and Holland) was excluded from the merger, as was Wallace Corporation's farms, along with its investments in technology companies Aduro Biopolymers and Ligar Polymers and Chilean dairy farming business Manuka.
In addition to Commerce Commission approval, Overseas Investment Office approval was required for the merger, as Modena Investments was jointly owned by the Spence family of Auckland and an Italian-based privately-held rendering business.
Graham Shortland, previously chief executive of Wallace Corporation, will lead the new company which will have its headquarters at Wallace Corporation's Waitoa site.
