A new slink skin company is setting up shop in Southland.
Newly formed NZAGRI Development set up its slink skins operation with help from Newton Slinkskins director Trevor Newton.
Newton shut up shop after he sold the land it was on to a forestry company in 2023.
NZAGRI Development technical adviser Eddie Zhi said Newton has been instrumental in helping restart the business, with key staff from Newton Slinkskins also helping.
Zhi has 30 years’ experience in animal products and has been described by Beef Central as a red meat deal-maker in Australia.
A friend of Zhi, Max Lee, bought the plant from the forestry company that Newton sold the land to.
Production will start at the Tuturau plant on August 25, he said.
The company will serve only the export market as there is no tannery in New Zealand that can process slink lamb skins, he said.
Zhi said the products are popular in the Chinese fashion industry as the wool is “very soft and pelts are very light”.
He said the company needs at least 15 to 20 skinners and five general workers.
“NZAGRI will expand into calf slinks next season too. We are also looking into investing into a rendering system in the near future.”
Farmer’s Weekly reported in 2021 that there were massive changes in the casualty stock business after Newton Slinkskins announced it would offer a reduced service to Southland farmers.
At that time Newton said the business had picked up around 140,000 lambs and 25,000 calves in 2020, but that reduced to around 50,000.
Newton called it a dismantling of the industry, with WG Ltd Partnership the only other business still running after Slinkskins went into receivership and the Lowe Corporation pulled out of the casualty operation in the South Island.
He cited “markets affected by the covid pandemic, slink operators going into receivership, change of ownership within the major players of the casualty stock industry, resulting in factories closing and collection services being affected”.
Ideas That Grow Podcast | Developing leaders in the food and fibre sector
In this episode, Lisa Rogers, Rural Leaders CEO, talks to host Bryan Gibson about the recently released report ‘A Path to Realising Leadership Potential in Aotearoa NZ’s Food and Fibre Sector’, along with its leadership development framework, and the leadership programmes serving as key tools for building more and ever greater leaders.
Rogers says while Rural Leaders is traditionally and at its core about leadership, it’s also increasingly moving into the capability space now and the journey to leadership – from first steps on their leadership development right through operations teams and into that strategic level of leadership as well.
