Source: Radio New Zealand
An aerial view of the reserve, the water ponds, and the Barker’s blocks and factory. Supplied
The Barkers jam maker is already in trouble with its neighbours over stinky wastewater ponds, and now it wants to dump the waste onto DOC land.
With the backdrop of the Southern Alps and a pristine river running by the famous jam-maker, Barker’s factory tells the ideal story of a successful New Zealand business.
What’s not captured in that idyllic image is the stench of its wastewater ponds and the company’s solution, that involves spraying five olympic-sized pools of liquid onto nearby conservation land.
“This is a lovely New Zealand story,” says Newsroom’s David Williams of the food-making business, started by the Barker family in Geraldine in 1969.
“Everybody wants something to be started in a cowshed, don’t they? And to be innovative and to try something on the side. It’s this iconic story associated with this iconic brand.”
The business flourished, its jams, pickles and sauces are a Kiwi favourite. French food giant Andros bought a majority stake in 2015 and took complete ownership two years ago. Recently it opened a $60 million expanded factory on the outskirts of Geraldine, employing 300 locals.
But not a month goes by without a story about the South Canterbury factory’s wastewater woes.
A screenshot from Barker’s website shows the idyllic location of the factory, as well the company’s ethos about the land. Supplied
“There’s been a bit of a shift in recent years and people around the factory haven’t been entirely happy with the way that Barker’s is behaving,” says Williams, who’s been investigating the company and its clashes with the environment regulator ECan and the Department of Conservation.
In the latest development, Barker’s has applied to the Department of Conservation (DOC) to spray 12,000 cubic metres of wastewater from its two ponds onto the neighbouring Hae Hae Te Moana River Conservation Reserve. DOC will decide by 5 March.
Williams says the story is about more than one company trying to come up with a solution for its industrial waste.
“This is about how regulators act when they have information and what they do in the face of companies pushing back. You know, this is one case but you would argue, is this the case of regulators up and down the country?”
The Timaru Herald’s Federico Magrin has also been digging into Barker’s wastewater practises and found it has been in tense discussions with ECan and DOC over it for months.
He reported in December that hundreds of emails, released under the Official Information Act, reveal exchanges between ECan, DOC and Barker’s over 18 months, “in a battle of cease-and-desist orders, claims and counter-claims”.
Magrin has looked into Andros, also a family company, famous for its Bonne Maman preserve. He compared its wastewater practices in France with New Zealand and found stark differences.
At its industrial site in France, its waste goes into a bioenergy plant next door and the highly treated wastewater is discharged into the neighbouring river.
“That is industrial France, whereas New Zealand this company is using the land as a treatment station, kind of. There is a very striking difference between how they treat wastewater in France and New Zealand even though one is in an industrial area and one is sitting next to a reserve with people living around the factory,” Magrin says.
His investigations also found that the rules for Andros in France are “extremely different” to Environment Canterbury’s regulations for Barker’s here.
“For the French factory there’s a limit for the amount of organic pollution it can discharge that ends up going into the water and what Barker’s is allowed to do is 32 times more than their French counterpart,” he says.
Williams says it is not the first time that Barker’s has sprayed wastewater onto the DOC reserve. Previously, DOC did not renew its license after the spray damaged the land.
“I don’t know why they let them discharge onto the reserve in the first place but when they’re faced with an application from anyone they have to consider it and they have to make sure there’s enough information for them to make a decision. I guess the public may judge them by whatever they decide goes on here.”
Listen to The Detail to hear how Barker’s has responded to the stories, why neighbours are nervous about the factory’s discharge plans for the DOC reserve and future plans to spray the wastewater on a pine forest block the company bought recently.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
