| 11 The Hawke’s Bay region’s annual catchment area encompasses about 1100 hectares and seventy-five grower families. Hastings: Heinz Wattie’s REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Every year Agnew Transport carts large volumes of fruit and produce to various packhouses and processing facilities, primarily throughout Napier and Hastings; the foodbowl of New Zealand. The company’s distinguished career goes back to 1984 when its owner/founder Willie Agnewpurchased a TK Bedford Truck to cart hay and transport fruit fromhis own orchard. Through word of mouth and reputation, Agnew Transport evolved to service other growers in the region. Today, Agnew Transport has twenty of its own trucks, and leases an additional twenty at the peak of the summer season. To provide diversity of operations, the eet consists of amix of bulk tipper trucks, multi atdeck/tipper convertible units and dedicated curtainsiders, in a con guration of truck and trailer units. Agnew Transport Services has also evolved as group of divisions that now includes: Bulk Cartage; Earthworks—which develops and maintains roads, building pads, and civil works—and; Agricultural Contracting, which specialises in the redevelopment of apple orchards. Six years ago, Williemoved his business base fromone of his own orchards to a standalone industrial yard inWhakatu, central to both Napier and Hastings clients. “The majority of Agnew Transport’s clients are based around horticulture, but Agnew Transport we also transport most general products as well,” says Willie. “Our clients include Mr Apple Group, Apatu Farms, Heinz Watties, Rockit Apple, Gair Contracting and Higgins. We’ve been transporting Heinz Watties produce for the last eight years. Prior to that I had built up a relationship with them as a grower for about 15 years, so I brought a good knowledge of the industry. For Heinz Watties, we transport tomatoes, sweet corn, beetroot, peaches and pears. Beyond Watties, we mainly transport bulk onions, apples, squash and grapes.” Having been a grower for much of his life, Willie’s knowledge of the industry and what is required during harvesting has played a signi cant part in the success of Agnew Transport Services. “For a grower, the transport of product to processor or coolstore can be the weakest link. The produce needs to be handled in a correct way, to ensure it arrives at its destination in rst class condition and that’s very much the responsibility of the transport operator. Timing is probably the most critical thing to get right when you have a perishable product. You have to get the product to its destination within its cold chain requirements to maintain quality. Making sure there’s regular transport from the growers during harvest to maintain throughput, is the other critical element.” For all of those challenges, that is where Willie’s experience as a grower really comes to the fore. Proud to support Heinz Wattie’s
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