Business North November 2021

18 | “The Te Puke site was the logical one because it was surrounded by orchards. We subsequently bought the neighbouring orchard to increase our area ready for the new infrastructure to be built on.” T to page 20 DMS Progrowers REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT YOU CAN’T GET MORE LOCAL THAN STRATUM Our vast local knowledge and experience is why we are one of the leading land development and land utilisation consultants in the Bay of Plenty. Helping DMS Progrowers deliver a great project. Your local land experts WWW.STRATUM.NZ | 07 571 4500 ENGINEERS . PLANNERS . SURVEYORS Expansion will future-proof business T Sue Russell DMS Progrowers chief executive, Derek Masters, left, and DMS Pukepack Site Manager Dave Pharo. S ince establishing in 1989, Tauran- ga-based DMS Progrowers has evolved into one of New Zealand’s largest kiwi- fruit management businesses, taking care of all aspects of kiwifruit and avocado orchard production and processing. CEO Derek Masters has been with the company since 2008 and in the CEO role since 2017. He says the future of New Zealand’s Gold Kiwifruit is extremely positive, with forecasted year on year increases in production to meet global export market demand. Along with kiwifruit orchard management and post-harvest services DMS Progrowers also manages Avocado orchards in the region. Avocado and kiwifruit are packed and cool- stored at the company’s Te Puna processing plant, kiwifruit is packed and stored at its Te Puke site, which is now undergoing an exten- sive expansion. “We looked at our current infrastructure at both the Te Puna and Te Puke sites. “With the gold volume of fruit coming on stream from existing orchards we knew we were going to have a serious problem catering for our own growers and future growth,” Derek explains. The answer was to expand the Te Puke site, which had a footprint large enough to significantly increase its packing and coolstore capacity and serious planning for this expan- sion began two years ago. “The Te Puke site was the logical one because it was surrounded by orchards,” says Derek. “We subsequently bought the neighbouring orcahrd to increase our area ready for the new infrastructure to be built on.” A new state-of-the-art packhouse and bin shed along with four cool-stores are being added to the Te Puke site. These, Derek says, will future-proof the businesses packing capacity. “The land we are building the packhouse on is actually only half the area we have availa- ble so we’re feeling very secure that we will be able to cope with expected increases in volumes over many years.” With increase in packing capacity comes an increase in demand for packhouse staff and in this case the Te Puke site will need another 100 or so seasonal workers. Fortunately for the core permanent man- agement staff, the expansion capability is within their scope to manage with existing numbers, but the seasonal labour-force, particularly at this time with Government restrictions on employing workers from other countries, is a cause for concern.