Presidents Report
A short note from me as we welcome in 2025. HBFA looks forward to serving the needs of our growers and members like we have for the past 125 years.
To start the year, I want to announce that HBFA are on the move. We have secured new office and storage space at Foodeast Haumako. https://www.foodeast.co.nz/ This is a state-of-the-art new building and food / innovation hub situated at 4 Hanui Rd Hastings – positioned just off Elwood Rd.
The team are excited about the new move which will position us to network with other core players in the industry allowing HBFA to be exposed to a wider audience. We will begin the move this week and will be operating out of the new premises by the end of next week. The Hub has everything we need to operate including breakout rooms, working stations, small and large board rooms and a large meeting room. I’d like to thank NZAPI for accommodating us over the last three and a half years at their offices. This gave us a chance to build stronger relationships with the API team and enabled a very coordinated joint approach to supporting the industry throughout the cyclone. HBFA are still supporting our growers nearly 2 years on with well-being help from Wanda Douglas still available to all growers, other networking events which you will hear about and of course Callum and I are always available to contact for a chat.
Our key corner stone events are all booked, including what will become our annual golf day – more info to come. We start off with our industry awards night in early Feb, everyone is welcome to come and celebrate our Eit and ITO students receive their certificates for finished studies. Scholarships for students and own industry awards will also be awarded. We look forward to seeing you there. (see newsletter for more details)
The weather has cooled off since Christmas slowing things down a little, but the season still looks to be early, we just need the size profile to continue its upward trend. No doubt most growers will be harvesting when my February report comes out so all the best with your harvest. Believing that 2025 will be a year that all things come together to make it a great and prosperous harvest and sales year for all companies.
Kia kaha
Brydon Nisbet President HBFA