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'Bumper' Salt Volumes In Cyclone Recovery For Dominion Salt
Monique Steele, Journalist
The wrath of Cyclone Gabrielle sent strong winds and heavy rainfall from the North Island's East Coast down to the top of the South Island in February 2023.
The storm smashed parts of Marlborough, including the country's only solar evaporative salt field at Lake Grassmere south of Blenheim, right before harvest was about to begin.
Happening just four times in its 77-year history, producer and refiner Dominion Salt's chief executive Euan Mcleish said its 2023 harvest produced nothing, after being disrupted by Cyclone Gabrielle.
"Two years ago, we had a no harvest, nothing at all, which was a challenge."
But a drought in early 2024, as well as this summer, meant good conditions for the salt fields, he said.
"Last year, we had a good harvest, so we got some reserves back and this year we had an above average harvest which is pleasing also," Mcleish said.
"But we're still playing catch up from a few years back where our salt reserves on the stack got completely depleted, but another reasonable harvest next year and will be back into a comfortable position."
Favourable weather conditions in 2024 led to what company owner, CK Life Sciences International of Hong Kong, referred to as "a bumper harvest", in its latest annual report.
Salt has been produced from evaporated sea water at Lake Grassmere since about the 1940s and covered around 1400 hectares.
Dominion Salt, headquartered in Mount Maunganui, used its salt made at the lake in food, pharmaceuticals, animal health and other products.
Mcleish said brine went out in late September before harvest began in early March.
He said early tallies saw the long-term average of 60,000 tonnes exceeded by another 15,000 tonnes this year.
"As they say in the industry, there's no two years to same," said Mcleish.
"Looking at long-term averages, our salt harvest at Lake Grassmere cycled through a 7-8 year from core harvest to good harvest to average harvests."
The company was owned by Mindonio, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-owned biotechnology CK Life Sciences International.
CK Life Sciences International had three salt businesses, Cheetham Salt in Australia, Cheetham Garam in Indonesia and Dominion Salt in New Zealand.
In its 2024 annual report, it said Cheetham and Dominion enjoyed leading positions in their domestic markets.
It said the bumper harvest in New Zealand had "contributed to our ability to cost control."
"They also serve vibrant and growing export markets, supplying premium food grade salt and high purity pharmaceutical salt that meets pharmacopoeia standards," it read.
"Although many of the business challenges faced in previous years flowed through into 2024, namely high inflation, significantly higher energy cost and labour market pressures, the salt business delivered improved financial performance through implemented business excellence initiatives envisaged in the strategic plan."
Its agriculture businesses included salt, crop and professional agribusiness solutions in Australia, and vineyards of more than 6,000 hectares across Australia and New Zealand.
The company reported an annual loss attributable to shareholders of $27 million ($126.6mHK) to the end of December, down from a profit of $3.7m ($17.3mHK) in 2023.
The loss was attributed to increased spend on research and development and the declining value of its vineyard portfolio.
Euan Mcleish said a focus for Dominion this year was to continue encouraging pastoral farmers to use its salt and multi-minerals on-farm to increase livestock productivity.
RNZ
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