It is part of a ground-breaking export venture started late last year by Palmerston North-based Five Star Pork (NZ) Ltd, a wholesale pork marketing company that gets stock from 30 pig farms around New Zealand, including several in Taranaki. Among these are the region's largest, the Oaonui farm of Ron and Noel Stanley and the Lepper family's operation at Lepperton. Ron Stanley and Steven Lepper are directors of Five Star Pork.

Taranaki Abattoirs at Stratford is among the beneficiaries of the Five Star Pork operation, killing up to 150 pigs each week for export, as well as others for the company's New Zealand customers.

Five Star Pork general manager Carl Wills said the launch of the exports to Singapore, the culmination of three years' work by his company and the New Zealand Pork Industry Board (NZPIB), represented the only export venture by the New Zealand pork industry.

Taranaki Abattoirs' managing director Terry Lester said catering for the Five Star Pork contract was a big factor in the continuing growth of his company's operation, which started with nine staff when it bought the abattoir in 1992.

It now employs 49, killing beef and sheep as well as pigs and also cutting, boning and vacuum-packing meat for a variety of clients.

At present, the pigs killed at the abattoir for the Singapore trade are shipped to Auckland as carcasses for processing. But Mr Lester said it was possible the Stratford plant could eventually do the additional processing as well, as happens with pork for the local market for Five Star and another client, Fresh Pork, with the meat going to supermarkets, butcheries, hotels and restaurants.

Source: Stuff.co.nz