The Hastings District Council, already facing debt and ongoing storm repairs, discusses the community implications of the McCain and Heinz Wattie’s closures in January as other communities also face foreign investors pulling out over the likes of rising energy costs. Comment supplied by the council.
The closure of McCain’s and the reduction of the frozen line at Heinz Wattie’s in Hastings have raised serious questions for the district and wider Hawke’s Bay.
The impacts are real – they affect workers, growers, suppliers, contractors, transport operators, local businesses and families. They also affect supply chains, household spending, and the confidence businesses need to invest and employ.
Those same questions and concerns will be echoed in other affected regions: Christchurch, Dunedin
and Auckland.
Hastings District Council Chief Executive Nigel Bickle says, for Hastings, it is important to say clearly that the district is not starting from a weak position. Hastings provides about 60 percent of Hawke’s Bay’s jobs and remains a major centre for primary industry, manufacturing, health, technology, logistics and services. The district has strong growers, established exporters, significant food production capability, and industrial land that continues to attract interest from forward-looking businesses.
Over the past decade, the Hastings District Council has deliberately planned for industrial and commercial growth. It has rezoned land to enable industrial development in Irongate and Omahu, supported wet industry capacity at Whakatu and Tomoana, and supported Foodeast Haumako as a food innovation hub at the Tomoana Food Hub.
Interest from technology-driven, forward-looking manufacturing companies in industrial-zoned land remains strong, with the high uptake at Irongate prompting pre-planning for expansion of that industrial area to support further growth.
While providing Hastings with a strong buffer from shocks such as these, none of it removes the immediate impact of the McCain and Heinz Wattie’s decisions. These changes are significant, and the impacts need to be properly understood.
The council’s role is to understand the implications, support regional and national conversations and actions, and plan for the impacts within its areas of responsibility. We cannot force an international company to keep a plant open or require private commercial information to be released.
It does not control national energy prices, trade policy, supermarket pricing pressure, export markets, workforce availability or consumer preferences.
Our council does have an important role in bringing people together, supporting investment, enabling commercial and industrial growth, and advocating where national decisions are needed.
That is already underway. Hastings Mayor Wendy Schollum has been working with Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Will Foley, bringing together growers and industry to advocate at a government level with one clear Hawke’s Bay voice.
The result of that is a commitment to a national investigation by the Primary Production Select Committee into the closures specifically, and, more broadly, into food processing, energy costs and regional economic resilience.
We welcome that process and will work to ensure Hawke’s Bay growers, workers, councils and businesses are heard, so the findings are evidence-based.
Locally, the impacts will be spread. The McCain closure is not scheduled until January 2027. The Heinz Wattie’s situation involves partial changes to Hastings operations, with some staff being redeployed or retrained, and the longer-term position for the Hastings site continuing to develop. That means reliable analysis depends on confirmed information about timing, site use, employment impacts, supplier impacts, land-use implications and future operational arrangements.
Nigel Bickle says the council’s work will be grounded in the best available information. “We are working through the employment and supplier impacts, rating implications, and what these changes may mean for our industrial land assumptions. That work needs to be based on actual information from the companies, industry and relevant agencies. It will be done carefully, and it will be transparent.”
The broader issue goes beyond local government. If New Zealand wants strong regions, it needs the conditions that allow regional food production and processing to survive and grow. Energy costs, trade exposure, supermarket pricing pressure, workforce availability, infrastructure and processing capacity all require serious national attention.
Hastings has the land, growers, infrastructure, workforce and capability to remain a significant food producing and manufacturing district. The focus now must be to make sure those strengths are built on, not taken for granted.