Aoraki Stockfoods is a family business

Since 1998, with my wife Shona, and recently son Daniel, Aoraki Stockfoods has specialized in the manufacture of calf meal and layer mash, supplying farmers in Central Otago, South Canterbury, Marlborough, West Coast, Mid Canterbury, North Otago and North Canterbury.

We run a low-cost/high-value business. Our feed mill is sited on our farm,  helping to keep costs are down. We do not employ travelling salesmen though you may receive a visit from me in the autumn.

As a past livestock farmer, I know the importance of quality feed and I don’t hesitate in rejecting grain or other raw materials that don’t meet our standards.

About Ken

I was born in Waimate and raised on a traditional sheep/beef and cropping family farm. At age 12, I volunteered to fatten some pigs and soon went from fattening 2 pigs at a time to 4, then 8. I had to learn about animal nutrition and started mixing crushed barley, meat and bone meal, dried blood meal and micro ingredients in a bathtub to get better growth rates and back fat.

School work wasn’t hard. However I was in a hurry to go farming. I wanted a job on a high country sheep station but they kept saying I was too young. My second choice was to get a job on a pig farm which is where I started just before turning 16.

It didn’t take long for me to buy my first sows and I became self-employed at age 20. Not long after I married and started building the first shed on our current site.

Over the next few years we built more sheds for the pigs, had 120 sows and were fattening everything.

How Aoraki Stockfoods started

In 1998 we altered the meal shed which allowed us to introduce wheat and peas to the pig diets. This meant we had a surplus of contracted barley.

I decided to process the barley before selling it and Aoraki Stockfoods started. It was a steep learning curve with lots to learn as we had no experience in mixing with molasses, using bag sewers and stacking bags to name just a few things. My experience in animal nutrition and the calf meal we made was well received and sales grew beyond all expectations.

Over the years I continued to improve the efficiency of the feed mill, with peak production 70 - 80 tonnes per day.

The new feed mill

Fast forward to 2020. The pigs have long gone, the land is leased out, and we are building a new purpose built feedmill to meet the demand for our calf meal.