New Zealand is famous for its delicious lamb and beef. And the New Zealand meat processing company Anzco Foods uses it as the basis for its high-quality products, which it sells worldwide. Now the company is purchasing two additional production systems from Schröter for its facility in Waitara, and in doing so is laying the foundation to increase its beef jerky output.
ON THE ROAD TO SUCCESS ACROSS THE GLOBE WITH BEEF JERKY
Schröter first installed systems at Anzco Foods back in 2005, delivering four THERMICjet hot-smoke cooking systems, two CLIMAjet maturing systems, and two CLIMAjet defrosting systems, as well as four SMOKjets for the company’s newly built production facility in Waitara. The special thing about this order was that “Anzco was our first beef jerky project,” remembers Frank Mack, Schröter’s head of sales. Initially these systems, which are designed with a focus on the product beef jerky, were used mainly to produce cooked salami products, and only partially for beef jerky. But because the company has only manufactured halal products at this location since 2014 – these are meat products that are considered pure according to Islamic law – it no longer produces salami here. In turn, Anzco – New Zealand’s fifth-largest exporter with annual revenues of approximately 930 million euros – increased its beef jerky output and added cooked beef ribs and lamb shanks to its wide-ranging portfolio. Today its employees produce “soft-style jerky” in a variety of different flavors, such as “Original,” “Hot and Spicy,” “Peppered,” “Manuka Smoked” (smoked with manuka myrtle), and “Teriyaki” (a Japanese sauce made from soy sauce, rice wine, and sugar or honey). The successful company exports this “Soft Jerky” to Japan, the United States, and also South Korea, Australia, and Great Britain.
“We were no longer able to meet the continuously increasing demand for our beef jerky products with our existing production systems, which is why we are going to install two further systems during the summer of 2017,” explains Site Manager Jacques Jordaan. He emphasizes that the decision to once again select Schröter was easy: “The quality of Schröter’s production systems is outstanding, which makes them extremely reliable, and at the time Schröter specially tailored the systems’ performance to meet our specific requirements,” said Mr. Jordaan. Since then, Anzco has benefited from the systems’ durability and long-life, minimal downtimes, as well as the ability to reliably reproduce its products – specifically beef jerky – even after many years in operation.
During the current project, Anzco worked closely with its Japanese majority shareholder Itoham Yonekyu. Itoham Yonekyu is known in Japan for its high-quality, small-caliber, cooked goods, including jerky and ham products, which the company also manufactures using production systems from Borgholzhausen. To ensure that the installation of the new systems goes off without a hitch, responsibility on-site will primarily lie with Schröter’s New Zealand representative Multivac New Zealand (NZ). “Multivac has been an important and extremely reliable partner of ours for more than a decade,” underscores Mr. Mack, and adds: “Our business activities in Oceania began in New Zealand, and together with Multivac’s current CEO, Stephen Holmes, we captured the Australian market from there.” Which means it’s no surprise that the chemistry during this project is once again excellent, that the collaboration with Anzco employees is extremely constructive, and that the teamwork between Multivac NZ and Schröter is outstanding – the ideal conditions for Anzco to expand its beef jerky production in the summer and as a result, remain on the road to success in the future as well.
ANZCO Foods is New Zealand’s fifth-largest exporter with an annual revenue of 1.45 billion Australian dollars (equal to approximately 930 million euros). The company has 3,000 employees worldwide (most of whom are located in New Zealand), and processes high-quality New Zealand beef and lamb and exports it to over 80 countries. ANZCO operates seven meat processing facilities and two food production locations in New Zealand. One of two of the company’s facilities in Taranaki, an area of the country that is increasingly becoming one of New Zealand’s key food processing regions, is located in Waitara.
