Where are the business opportunities currently for your company?

Most of the growth opportunities for the manufacturing side of our business come from export, particularly in South East Asia, but our parent company has also recently made the move into the North American market.

 How are you finding business conditions?

In New Zealand currently it is a case of batten down the hatches and hold on to market share for our traditional manufactured products. The declining number of manufacturers, reduced maintenance spending, Government spending cuts and low rates of construction activity are making things difficult.

What is the secret of your company’s longevity?

We are fortunate to have good owners who have invested heavily in the company (not just during the good times) and allowed us to stay ahead of competitors with new machinery, manufacturing systems, tool design and quality. We have continued to invest in our brands and the relationships we have with distribution partners in New Zealand and around the world.

What can be done – do you think – to assist NZ businesses in the present business climate?

It would be easy to harp on about the New Zealand dollar and Government controls but we can’t go back to old protectionist days. Businesses need to adapt their own activity and products to stimulate growth.

We would like to see some real effort to reduce compliance costs and generate more activity in the building and construction sectors but the fact is manufacturing in New Zealand has always been difficult and is unlikely to expand rapidly.

Where do you export to?

We export to Australia, South Pacific, Europe, and South East Asia. We are market leaders in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

The future?

There are many possible options for our future, we continue to improve our production equipment and systems, we have sold a couple of oil recovery presses (which were initially designed and built by our own Engineers to solve our own problems).

We are also the centre of excellence for the Sutton Group when it comes to designing and building production machinery and rebuilding/updating the old machines. I’d like to think that we will be here in another 50 years.