Building a New Future

As agriculture in New Zealand has changed over time, some buildings once associated with the farming industry have found new uses

The first European settlers arrived in the Taranaki region of New Zealand in 1841. Their initial aim was not to be dairy farmers -- who keep cows for their milk and make dairy products such as butter. In fact, the dense bush was cleared to grow commercial crops of wheat. However, most of the settlers came from the English counties of Devon and Cornwall, where for generations their families had been involved in dairy farming, so it was natural for them to keep cows for domestic purposes. Throughout the 1840s women made butter for their families, and any extra was traded at local stores for other goods that they would normally have needed to pay for. By the 1860s some farmers had recognised that the region’s future lay in grasslands for dairy cows, not crops, and new dairy farms were created as a result. At the same time, a corresponding growth in farmhouse butter production led to a surplus, so clever merchants began packing butter in barrels, preserving it either in brine or layers of dry salt so that it would last for up to two months, and sending it to other parts of the country.

One early trader was a Chinese entrepreneur called Chew Chong, whose name is closely linked to dairy farming in Taranaki. He arrived in 1870 via the goldfields of Australia, determined to try something new, namely travelling throughout the district selling essential goods and buying Taranaki wool -- a type of edible fungus that was exported to China. Chew Chong opened several stores around Taranaki and began buying excess farmhouse butter, which he packed for resale, often attempting to export it to Australia and England. In 1882, the development of the first refrigerated ships created greater economic potential for the Taranaki dairy farming industry, because it allowed fresh produce to be traded to distant cities. As a result, the first small factories were built in the region in order to process local milk. However, throughout the 1880s the industry was characterised by two particular problems: inconsistent quality control and irregular supply.

In 1887 a new era began when Chew Chong built his own dairy products factory near the town of Eltham. Initially called Riverside, and later Jubilee, Chew Chong’s state-of-the-art factory attracted so much admiration that in 1889 he won a prestigious award for its production methods. Jubilee was the first New Zealand dairy factory to install a refrigeration machine, and is believed to have been the first to produce rectangular blocks of butter weighing 1 pound (0.45 kilograms) and to wrap them in paper, also making it possible for the place of origin to be shown.

In the 1890s, with prospects for the dairy industry looking better and better, Taranaki farmers began to form special companies called ‘cooperatives’, which gave each of them a larger proportion of the profits made by the industry as a whole. By the early 1900s, the cooperative system dominated the industry, forcing the closure of some smaller independent factories like Jubilee in 1901. Another factor influencing development was that the roads in the area were very rough and badly maintained, so factories were located every few kilometres, becoming the focus of rural communities. From the early 1900s onwards, these factories were constructed in concrete, so the structures were solid and practical, making them ideally suited for industrial or agricultural enterprises.

The decline of Taranaki’s small dairy factories has been long and slow. As technology improved, dairy cooperative companies joined together until, by 1992, only a single large factory survived in the region. Some of those that closed have been demolished, while many are used for other purposes. The factory at Tawhiti, for example, closed in 1967 and was subsequently bought by a local artist. Today the building houses an acclaimed museum, where artworks and artefacts jointly depict aspects of Taranaki history. Further around the coast, the Kaupokonui factory had been one of the most successful dairy cooperatives in the country until a merger in 1962 saw the building closed. Soon afterwards, however, the complex became the base for an international company manufacturing natural gut strings for tennis racquets. The company continues to provide employment for locals, and the buildings have not undergone any significant alterations.

While other Taranaki factories are today used for substantially different purposes from milk processing, the Okato factory recently returned to its original function. The factory closed in 1985 and was subsequently used as a youth hostel and an entertainment venue. Then in late 2009, Organic Dairy Ltd. again started to manufacture cheese on the site. A new multimillion dollar plant was built, and once again milk tankers call daily to supply the raw materials. So for at least one of Taranaki’s old dairy factories, it seems things have come full circle.