The group, who are all friends, have formed a co-operative-style ownership in the past month to keep the business in local hands and protect and promote farming.
Founder Timo Christophersen is one of the new partners who want the business to continue working closely with local farmers, provide fair pricing, and supply locally raised meat direct to Kiwi homes.
Hurunui Farms has an online store and sends boxes of chilled meat by courier throughout the nation.
Expansion plans include increasing sales and adding new box selections. They are in talks with clients for the next business stage of widening sales further and have started stepping up marketing on social media.
They are hoping to add a farm shop to their Woodend factory facility in October after going through the consent process.
New owner Steve de Jeu said the shareholders were all passionate about red meat and wanted to keep the business going for the Canterbury community.
Mr de Jeu recognised Mr Christophersen had too many business interests, so he and wife Eve Mullins brought together friends to form a new ownership.
They had retained the company name and started off with the same business model, he said.
"We completely picked the same model up because it works and our belief is if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. So we have injected cash in to it and are now looking to grow."
He said the company wanted to provide top beef cuts to domestic consumers as high demand was seeing a lot of this heading offshore.
"Cattle are low on the ground at the moment and it is probably the highest price we have ever seen for cattle in a number of years. So we are having to fight export to get enough to butcher."
Rural Livestock agent Hayden McCarthy sources cattle and sheep from Hurunui farmers which are processed in Ashburton.
Full carcasses are brought back to the Woodend facility to be butchered for the meat range.
In the next phase, the shareholders want to supply their own free-range pigs because most of the shareholders are on lifestyle blocks.
The new shareholding ranges from silent investors to those playing an active role, including butcher Steve Pawson who received a share from the new owners in exchange for specialised skills he gave to the business.
"Half of them will be proactive in different ways and we have got a couple of projects coming up and want to put different end products for meat so it’s not just pure meat and then a couple of them will be involved in taste testing. We have a commercial couple who will help with the property and any commercial issues we have to do and the rest are silent. They put their money where their mouth is and said we believe in New Zealand farming and want to see this business thrive."
Among them are active and retired farmers, commercial property owners, a builder, naturopath, an aircraft engineer, while Mr de Jeu and his wife have a wooden product business.
Sales are expected to take off in spring when the barbecue season starts in the run up to Christmas with the range of cuts added in boxes to service the seasonal demand.
