After 17 years as a director of Silver Fern Farms, and more than 11 of those as chairman, Rob Hewett officially stepped down at 1pm from his governance roles with the company, which he estimated equated to 38% of his total life.
“I’m so proud of this company. I’m going to miss it like hell,” he said.
Reminiscing on his tenure, following the conclusion of Silver Fern Farms Co-operative’s annual meeting in Dunedin yesterday, Mr Hewett said he joined the board as a “very green” 38-year-old director.
Since then, revenue had trebled, a rebrand had been completed and a market-led strategy rolled out “and become simply the way things are done”.
He recalled a meeting in December 2014 which he attended as the newly minted chairman, facing “relatively hostile” bank representatives in a meeting room in Auckland to tell them them why Silver Fern Farms was worth persevering with.
As the subsequent rebuild began, with the intention of attracting investors, any mis-step was likely to lead to “shut up the shop”. Customers had to be kept happy with sales moving through and the company had to keep within very tight banking covenant conditions.
“There’s nothing like a crisis to align the directors of the board, who never wavered from the trajectory we were on,” he said.
Shanghai Maling — now Bright Meat Group — joined the co-operative in a partnership and Silver Fern Farms “finally had air under its wings and our ascendance was remarkable”, he said.
Over the years, hundreds of millions had been invested in capital projects, offshore offices had been established to complement the existing network and branded product was available in all New Zealand supermarkets and offshore.
“Silver Fern Farms is a globally recognised high-quality red meat brand,” he said.
As for the future? There was “plenty on”. Geopolitically, it had not been this tumultuous for a long time, possibly since pre-World War 2.
Silver Fern Farms’ position as a company, and New Zealand’s as a country, in the world needed to be carefully navigated and New Zealand exporters needed to face issues together.
Overcapacity in the red meat sector was well documented and, unfortunately, there was “more heavy lifting to do”. Silver Fern Farms would have to do its share as would everyone else.
He was continually mindful of the challenges facing livestock farmers, and he was very proud to be a sheep and beef farmer from South Otago — “that’s what keeps it real” — and profitability behind the farm gate was critical.
Describing himself as an optimist, Mr Hewett said he saw possibilities rather than reasons for not doing things. Land use change would continue but the simple fact was people needed to eat.
