Fonterra Must Live Up To Its Name

Environmentalists see the dairy industry’s choice of the name “Fonterra” as a hopeful sign, but the new company has a big challenge to live up to the promise of natural purity embodied in its new name, the Ecologic Foundation said today.

Ecologic’s executive director Guy Salmon was responding to today’s announcement that Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd is to be the name for New Zealand’s giant new dairy company, and that the name was “associated with natural purity and the quality of products that flow from our land.”

“To base the name of your company on natural purity is to make a big commitment,” Mr Salmon said.

“I welcome it, but I hope they understand what it means. They are going to be accountable for everything that flows from the land in their care.”

For many years, the Dairy Board had marketed its product with clean green imagery but had failed to take any effective action to ensure that dairy cows were kept out of streams, he said.

The result was that rivers and streams in the Waikato lowlands were unswimmable and unfishable, and the South Island was going the same way.

“The big challenge for Fonterra is to explain to Federated Farmers what this name means, and to win all farmers’ support for a massive clean-up.”

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