Bright and early on Thursday March 1, Brandon and I traveled down to Ashburton area in our little rental car to tour the Silver Fern Farms sheep plant at Fairton. We met our tour guides Scott and John in the office at 7:30 am, put on some tyvek pants, grabbed some tyvek shirts and hairnets and began our tour.
Silver Fern Farms processes sheep, beef and deer at processing plants throughout the North and South Islands, and is one of the biggest meat processors in the country. At Fairton, sheep (lamb and mutton) and veal calves are processed. The plant was originally built in 1894, however since then there have been many upgrades and expansions. The plant runs two lines, each killing and processing 3500 head, making the maximum kill capacity for the entire plant 7000 animal units each day. I found it very interesting that 100% of the animals killed at Silver Fern Farms are Halaal certified - regardless of whether they are being marketed as Halaal or not. There is a Halaal certified worker on each line as well as a spare, and if for some reason an animal is not killed using Halaal, it is tagged and sent to a different area of the plant.
The plant also uses robots to remove the hides and make certain cuts as the carcasses move along the line. The system uses cameras to measure the carcasses in order for the robots to make cuts in the correct place. Once the carcasses are gutted, each one is inspected by government employees for any type of carcass contamination. If they do not pass inspection, the carcasses are tagged for removal of any type of contamination, or they are condemned.
From the kill floor, the carcasses are tagged with a plastic tag and an RFID chip, in order to trace each carcass as it moves through the plant. They move into chill rooms first, at around 15 degrees Celsius for four hours, and then are moved into cold storage at 6 degrees Celsius for two to six days.
The majority of lamb processed by Silver Fern Farms is cut up, vacuumed packed and shipped frozen to overseas markets. Europe makes up the largest market for New Zealand lamb, as well as the United States and Asia.
The last part of our tour was through the yards, where each lot from each farm is penned separately. Lots of lambs from one farm are all killed at the same time, and farms are paid by carcass yield. The yards were very calm and quiet, and virtually stress free for the animals. Dogs are not used in the yards anymore, due to government regulation.
It was very interesting to see the plant, specifically the lamb plant because very little sheep is eaten in Canada. I learned a lot, and I would recommend touring Silver Fern Farms to any agvocates traveling to New Zealand, it's a great way to see how food is processed in a different county.
Our last couple days in Christchurch we spent by touring around the city to check out the earth quake damage. It is devastating to see the damage throughout the entire city. At one point cruising around the city, we got lost, and found ourselves in an area where entire communities of homes had been condemned. I couldn't even imagine how tragic it would be to lose your home that you had made for yourself, and have it taken away from you by multiple earth quakes. Just awful.
We also got to meet up with some friends I had made from Tahora Farms at the pub out in Lincoln. Turns out Thursday night in Lincoln is quite the happening night, and we had a good time. It was really cool to go to the pwon with some friends one last time before we left New Zealand.
On Saturday morning before we left, we toured Silverstream Charolais, a stud located south of Christchurch on the highway out to Akaroa. We spent the very rainy morning touring around the beautiful farm in the ute with Bruce Fisher of Silverstream, looking at some of the cow herd as well as the bull offering they have for their sale in June.
Saw some great cattle, definitely very comparable in style to Canadian cattle. Again at Silverstream, the cattle are grown on grass and hay, without grain added to their diets, so choosing the right genetics to use in the herd requires some different qualities for them as it would be in Canada. Very interesting, and an absolutely gorgeous farm. Such a great tour, even though it was short and it poured rain the entire time.
Although it was raining and cold for our last day in New Zealand, leaving the country on our flight to Australia that afternoon was bittersweet. I am very excited to see Aussie, however leaving New Zealand was very sad. I grew to love the country. Not only the bacon and egg pies, gorgeous landscape and Tui beer, but I also fell in love with the people too. Kiwis are extremely friendly and hospitable people, and I absolutely reccomend visiting New Zealand to anyone who wants an idea of where to travel to! It's sweet as, mates. Sweet as.
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