10 | Pushing the envelope on sustainability Richard Loader Heinz Wattie’s employs up to 1500 people at the peak of the harvest season. Hastings: Heinz Wattie’s REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Whether it’s a can of peaches, baked beans, tomato sauce or one of the many other products in its stable, Wattie’s is one of those truly iconic Kiwi brands that everyone knows and loves. What many of us will not know is that the business was founded on the concept of sustainability — something that resonates with 21st century New Zealand where sustainability features strongly in consumer decision making. Back in 1934, a young James Wattie worked as a clerk in Hastings — the food bowl of New Zealand — and he observed a lot of fruit going to waste, igniting the idea of preserving fruit. From that simple and humble idea, Wattie’s was born and over the decades has evolved with seven processing sites across New Zealand including the original King Street site. In 1992 Wattie’s was bought by the Heinz Group, and rebranded as Heinz Wattie’s, and more latterly the Heinz Group merged with Kraft. Employing up to 1500 people at peak of the harvest season, Wattie’s has grown to be one of New Zealand’s largest food producers. Hawke’s Bay, where the journey began, has two processing sites — one in King Street and the other in nearby Tomoana. From those sites, processing includes everything from condiments, tomato sauce, canned and frozen vegetables, and even pet food at the Tomoana site. “The Tomoana site is 25 acres and includes our National Distribution Centre. Our King Street operation is about 120,000sqm, or thirty acres, and we confidently believe it to be the largest canning operation in the southern hemisphere,” says Managing Director Neil Heffer. “As an example of the scale of our production, in the last year we’ve sold more than 60 million cans of Wattie’s Spaghetti, Baked Beans and Chilli Beans. Outside of feeding New Zealanders, we manufacture products that are exported to Australia, Japan, South Korea and some other Asian markets. So, we export New Zealand to the world, because of course New Zealand produce is fabulously popular all around the world.” The Hawke’s Bay region’s annual catchment area encompasses about 1100 hectares and seventy-five grower families. “Many of those families are now into their third generation as suppliers to Wattie’s. That’s absolutely fabulous in terms of heritage for the company and we treat those grower relationships very dearly.” Just as the idea of sustainability was a strong driver for the company’s founder almost 90 years ago, sustainability continues to be at the core of the business, influencing its decision making and practices throughout the organisation. “We really want to be a force for good within New Zealand,” says Neil. “We feel we’re a big part of New Zealand society, and we want to play an even bigger and more responsible role both locally and globally. We’re always thinking about our impact on the environment and have a number of environmental and sustainability initiatives in progress. So, we’re really taking action. From a growing perspective we’re investing in science and technology to help reduce our water consumption, which is a major part of any food production carbon footprint. That would also help us improve our growing practices and make us more efficient in terms of yield. So, we have new irrigation systems that monitor the soil to ensure we’re watering the crops effectively. As a result of that we’re able to grow more on the same land, compared with twenty years ago, and we’re still hitting record crop highs, despite some major weather events this year.” All Wattie’s cans and most of the bottles can be recycled and the company’s aim is to ensure that 100% of its packaging is recyclable, re-usable or compostable by 2025. “We’re on track to deliver our first circular tomato/ketchup squeezy bottle the market in Europe this year. In the context of a big food company, of course we should take sustainability seriously. Our commitment is to be net-zero by 2050, and importantly to halve our emissions by 2030. In Hawke’s Bay we’ve joined the Hawke’s Bay arm of the Sustainable Attainable programme. The aim of that is to develop alternatives for the by-products generated during food processing and manufacturing. We’re very proud of what we’re doing from a sustainability perspective. We’re doing lots locally and globally as well, and will keep pushing the envelope to make the company a force for good.” Heinz Wattie’s drive to be a force for good also reflects in its community engagement and in many cases that has forged relationships going back decades, while others are relatively new. “First and foremost, something that we’re really proud of is working closely with the notfor-profit organisation Nourished for Nil. Their purpose is to provide human and pet food to families in need. Sadly, during the pandemic that need has grown more than ever. We were humbled to be in a position to provide nearly 1.2 million cans of food and pet food products last year.” Heinz Wattie’s partnership with the Salvation Army’s began in 1994, and through various campaigns over 1.5 million cans of food have been donated to date. In 2020, Wattie’s and Plunket celebrated 30 years of working together, with a special fund raiser resulting in 50,000 pouches of baby food being donated to Plunket to support families in need. “That engagement with community is so important to us and we want to do more. We are constantly reviewing our partnership and thinking about what else we can do. We know it means a lot to the local community and it means a lot to our employees.”
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