Our people go home safe and well every day. We look after each other and encourage mental & physical wellbeing. We have a proactive approach to food safety.
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Established in 1985, Freshpork is the country’s leading pork processor and wholesaler. For over three decades, Freshpork has been 100 per cent privately owned and managed by the Glass family, and today provides approximately one third of New Zealand’s pork to markets across New Zealand.
Our story
Freshpork began some 12 years prior to its formal establishment in 1985, thanks to the determination of a young Irishman, his small farm and its three pigs.
Founder and owner Denver Glass spent his early teenage years working with his parents at their local grocery store in Northern Ireland. Four years after the family migrated to Canterbury in 1956, Denver purchased a milk run, which earned him enough money to save for a small lot of land in Yaldhurst.
Despite Denver’s lack of farming experience, his sister Doris suggested he run a small pig farm – having managed one herself in Ashburton – and later gifted Denver three sows and a boar. The next ten years saw Denver become an expert in raising healthy pigs – attending Massey University to study pig welfare and nutrition.
As his business grew, Denver moved into trading and later acquired a specialist facility in Timaru and Levin to help fill growing orders around the country.
Today, Freshpork processes and markets approximately one third of the country’s pork, and continues to grow and develop its practices to provide fresh, high quality pork to New Zealanders and their families.
How we operate
We have plants in Timaru, Burnham and Levin, as well as a head office in Christchurch. From our Timaru abattoir and Levin cutting plant, Freshpork primarily operates as a wholesale supplier of pork carcasses and pork cuts to retailers (for “at home dining”) and the food service industry (“away from home dining”) across New Zealand.
The majority of our products are wholesale branded under Freshpork NZ, before being rebranded under a retailer’s own label. We also produce a number of consumer branded pork products, including; Heartland NZ Fresh Foods, Bees Knees and Freedom Farms.
Recognising the opportunity
Freshpork NZ recognises that pork consumption in New Zealand is at a relatively low base – particularly compared to some alternative proteins such as beef and chicken. The opportunity for Freshpork NZ – and the wider NZ pork industry – lies in finding ways to promote pork as a versatile, every day, mid-week meal option.
Accordingly, Freshpork continues to innovate in product range and service to retailers and food service markets. An example of this is our Heartland NZ Fresh Foods brand – a retail shelf-ready consumer range that offers convenience, ease of cooking and reliability.
Safety first
At Freshpork NZ our motto is “Play it Safe”. Nothing is more important than making sure everyone on our team gets home safely every night. The wellbeing of our people is our clear priority; and we have programmes and systems in place to make sure safe behaviour is embedded in everything we do.
We empower our people to constantly think of ways to keep themselves and their workmates safe.
We are committed to not only minimising incident rates in our business but also specifically focusing on the high-risk activities through our Critical Risk Program.
Our Board, Senior Management, as well as the wider team, all play an active role in safety leadership, and this, together with a strong safety culture across our sites, helps us to deploy appropriate systems to keep our people and site visitors safe.
