Rather than going fishing it’s a case of gone farming for meat industry stalwart Sir Graeme Harrison,
who has cashed in his remaining shares and resigned as chairman of ANZCO Foods.
“It is one of those ironies” says the 69-year-old, “that school friends are retiring from farming and I am going farming. I hope I can keep fit enough for a few years.” A keen runner, Sir Graeme will have plenty of opportunity to chase livestock around the 1580ha Mt Alford Station he bought for $9.6m in 2014.
It was during a visit to Japan in 1984 that he founded the Asian NZ Meat Company as a sheepmeat marketing business for the Meat Board. Ten years later, Sir Graeme led a management buy-out of ANZCO that returned the farmer-owned Meat Producers Board $40 million on its initial capital investment of $350,000.
One of the first foreign companies of any scale to export, process and distribute the bulk of its product into Japan, ANZCO grew to become New Zealand’s third-largest meat company, with 3000 employees and turnover of $1.45 billion. Describing the meat industry as a battle of attrition, Sir Graeme told NZ Farmer that survival was much tougher than people imagine. “People said ANZCO was doomed to failure. I am happy to say it has been a success.”
Admitted into the Business Hall of Fame in 2017 and knighted in 2011 for services to agribusiness, Sir Graeme has spoken proudly of how he and fellow Rich Lister Sir Stephen Tindall were the only two people of their generation to build business worth more than $1 billion from nothing.
The sale of Sir Graeme’s 20% shareholding in ANZCO to Japan’s Itoham Foods is estimated to have earned him close to $60m, and he has no qualms about the company being in foreign hands. “If you want to go down the path of investing in serious value-add activities you have to attract capital. I’ve never had any hang-ups with foreign ownership. The jobs are here and opportunities are here.”
Bestowed with an honorary doctorate by Lincoln University, Sir Graeme has been giving back by funding a variety of scholarships. True to his southern roots, he and Lady Barbara reside where he grew up at the foot of the Southern Alps in Methven where the couple still farm a 75ha property owned by Sir Graeme’s father.