Another 225 meat processing jobs will go in Christchurch as Dunedin-based Silver Fern Farms continues its cost cutting plans.
Silver Fern Farms, formerly known as PPCS, announced this morning it plans to close the sheep and lamb slaughter processing portion of its operation at the Canterbury processing plant, at Belfast, near Christchurch.
The proposal would slash 225 processing jobs and 24 administration and maintenance positions although there were about 70 new jobs available at the nearby Islington and the Belfast beef plant.
Chief executive Keith Cooper said the closure of the slaughter operations was the final instalment of the "Project Rightsize" for 2008, which was designed to align processing capacity with supply, improve financial performance and reposition the business as a marketing organisation under the Silver Fern Brand.
No further closures were planned but all operations were subject to ongoing review based on site economics and productivity and efficiency measures.
With this proposal, Silver Frarm Farms would have reduced the number of full operating sites by six, with lamb capacity reduced by five chains, he said.
Since February 2007, the company had reduced debt by $150 million.
