New Zealand Meat Workers' Union Otago-Southland branch president Daryl Carran said the redundancies were confirmed last Friday, after two weeks of consultation.
The losses were disappointing, especially given that the workers, who carried out ovine rendering, had been in relatively secure seasonal work before then, he said.
Unlike more than 100 other workers, they had been unaffected by Silver Fern Farms' decision not to open Silverstream for the lamb cut season late last year.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper confirmed the redundancies yesterday.
''It's essentially because over the last two years price for ovine meat and bone meal has declined to the extent that it doesn't warrant processing it separately from bovine meal,'' Mr Cooper said.
The rendering would now be done at Finegand, together with its bovine rendering, but there would be no extra jobs at the South Otago plant as a result, he said.
