Natasha Martin/Stuff
Silver Fern Farms is among meat plants and abattoirs supplying offal to Glorivale’s Value Proteins Factory which makes meal for use in pet and stock food.
- Gloriavale’s Value Proteins offal processing plant is being dumped by at least one major meat company over labour issues.
- The plant is also facing scrutiny from WorkSafe over severe burns to a worker and reports a 13-year-old drove a roller in the factory yard.
Silver Fern Farms is pulling out of supplying offal to a meal plant at the Gloriavale Christian Community because of concern about its labour practices, and other meat companies may follow suit.
This comes on top of last week’s announcement that Westland Dairy is considering ending its milk supply contract with Gloriavale dairy farms after a recent Employment Court finding that Gloriavale enterprises relied heavily on child labour and that workers treated as volunteers were in fact employees.
Alliance Group chief executive David Surveyor said his company was currently reviewing its relationship with Value Proteins and had requested further information from them, and ANZCO Foods said it was taking advice on the impact of the court ruling.
Meanwhile, the meal plant faces scrutiny from other quarters. WorkSafe confirmed it will carry out an assessment following reports an offal plant worker suffered third degree burns in early May, and that a 13-year-old was seen driving a roller at the factory in late April.
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Employment Court
Gloriavale leader Howard Temple, known as the Overseeing Shepherd, tells members to completely surrender or leave the community.
An Official Information Act response from WorkSafe said the roller driving incident had caused “no injuries yet”, but there were concerns something may happen as there had been “a previous incident at the factory when children were present, and the roller was in use”.
A number of meat companies and abattoirs truck offal to the export-licenced Value Proteins plant which turns it into high value protein used in pet and stock food.
Three companies with significant export markets, Silver Fern Farms, Alliance Group and ANZCO, report under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act.
According to the modern slavery policy outlined on the Silver Fern Farms’ website, it is committed to the “fair and humane treatment” of people in its employment and supply chains, and insists all suppliers “uphold the highest ethical standards in their workplace practices and policies.”
Silver Fern Farms employees were encouraged to report any concerns about slavery or human trafficking they may suspect or have witnessed outside the company, or become aware of in the course of their work.
In a written statement a company spokesperson said the decision to “discontinue any commercial arrangements” with Value Proteins was based on the Employment Court ruling, and would be implemented as soon as practicable.
JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/Stuff
Hosea Courage, left, Daniel Pilgrim, and lawyer Stephen Patterson speak after an Employment Court verdict about Gloriavale. That court decision is having severe financial consequences for the West Coast Christian Community.
The company did not respond to further questions from Stuff about whether staff had ever raised concerns about conditions at the Gloriavale factory when delivering offal, and what impact its decision to end the contract would have on other rendering facilities.
Wallace Group owns three of about nine rendering plants in the South Island and operations manager Manfredo Hintze said capacity was already tight during peak killing season.
If Silver Fern Farms and Alliance quit using Gloriavale, “it would add more pressure at those times.”
Hintze said many of the older rendering plants had closed, and Wallace Group was seriously considering building a new one in Otago or Southland
Associate professor Christine Stringer from Auckland University’s Centre for Research on Modern Slavery, said New Zealand companies should not be waiting for an Employment Court decision to act when accounts of serious exploitation in their supply chain were raised.
In the case of Gloriavale, media had been reporting problems for several years, and in such circumstances companies should do their own due diligence with suppliers, and take further action if they failed to lift their game.
Silver Fern Farms currently reports under the UK Modern Slavery Act, but the New Zealand Government is looking at introducing similar legisation, and consultation on a law change closes on June 7.
