NZITO to Move into Waikato Innovation Park

MEDIA RELEASE
30 June 2009

NZITO Corporate Office to Move into Waikato Innovation Park

New Zealand Industry Training Organisation (NZITO) has announced today it has signed a lease at the Waikato Innovation Park and will move into the Park’s new building on 31 July. The organisation is currently located in Hamilton’s central business district.

NZITO General Manager, Carl Ammon, says his organisation will benefit from being at the coalface of innovation in the agri‐food industry.

“At NZITO, we’re focused on delivering on‐the‐job training that’s going to collectively build a world‐class food industry. And, to ensure we stay on top, our trainers are continually keeping abreast of the latest innovations and trends in the food industry. It’s the trends, products and technologies that provide information about the skills people are going to need in the future.

“Being at the Waikato Innovation Park is going to help us stay close to the latest innovations happening in our industry. And, we’ll have the chance to become even closer to the industry innovators who are truly at the forefront in New Zealand,” explains Mr Ammon.

NZITO is a charitable trust whose shareholders are Fonterra, Westland, Tatua, Silverfern Farms, the Alliance Group and the Meat Industry Association. The organisation provides training resources for all food export companies across New Zealand. It also works in the leather, petfood, biofuels, food quality assurance and industrial yeast industries.

NZITO currently employs 300 contract trainers and oversees 400 on‐the‐job assessors. Each year, over 16,000 people train through NZITO – many of whom are gaining qualifications that take two or more years to obtain. Around 2000 people in the Waikato region are currently being trained through NZITO.

Waikato Innovation Park CEO, Derek Fairweather, says having NZITO commit to locating in the Park provides further depth in terms of the Park’s networks and partners.

“Over the past five years, the Waikato Innovation Park has become solely focused on growing agricultural technology and biotechnology businesses. The networks and partnerships we’ve formed have gone a long way toward making us a success.

“These are partnerships with commercial companies, training providers, AgResearch, the University of Waikato, Wintec, CRIs, angel investors and others. Getting our tenants connected into these networks has added real value for them. Now, having NZITO on campus will ensure the innovations our tenants are making are fed into the training pipeline,” says Mr Fairweather.

Mr Ammon says the Waikato Innovation Park is the ideal headquarters for his organisation.

“We selected the Innovation Park because it was an excellent work environment for our staff. We’re also excited about sharing space with the wide range of companies – from small startups to multinationals,” says Mr Ammon.

Mr Ammon uses the New Zealand biofuels industry as an example of how the organisation is working with new innovations and new industries that arise from its core of dairy and meat.

“Just recently we’ve started working with some of our clients in the food industry to develop training requirements for the country’s emerging biofuel industry. Our expertise in training people to work in dairy and meat processing plants translates quite well into this new industry.

“Being involved with industry partners as this industry gains momentum has been exciting, and we hope by being at the Innovation Park we’ll have a chance to do this more and more,” says Mr Ammon.

ENDS

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