Canty ag firm eyes new opportunity
Canterbury could get a new food and fibre hub if a potential international partnership goes ahead.
Craig Carr.
The Overseas Investment Office has approved the $8.5 million purchase of just over 20 ha of land at the Ashburton Business Estate, with an option to purchase a further eight ha.
The overseas applicant is InsideOut LLC, a United States based company founded and controlled by Suzy Amis Cameron, wife of Canadian-born filmmaker James Cameron.
InsideOut intends to form a joint venture with Carrfields Food and Fibre Investments Partnership.
Carrfields Group managing director Craig Carr, son of founders Greg and Glynis Carr, confirms plans are underway to develop and build a leading food and fibre business park, but it’s too early to share more details.
“There are standard conditions attached to Overseas Investment Office’s approval of the purchase.
“More information will be made available in due course.”
According to the OIO, the main benefits to NZ are likely to include increased capital expenditure through InsideOut’s investment and acquisition of a 50 per cent share in natural fibres company Rubisco.
Currently Rubisco is majority owned by NZNF Holdings, which in turn is majority owned by Carrfields.
The company manufactures and supplies wool yarn, hemp hurd and fibre, merino fibre and bio-composite material.
Creation of jobs, introductions of new technology and business skills, increased export receipts, productivity and processing of primary products are other benefits of the proposed joint venture between InsideOut and Carrfields, the OIO says.
InsideOut is an investment company with interests in science, research and technology; fashion and textiles; food; education, and media, all focussed on sustainability.
According to the company’s website, ‘we reimagine food as a force for regeneration, crafting plant-based ingredients and products that nourish the body, restore the land, and sustain communities.’
American-born Amis Cameron is a former model and actress, and a plant-based food advocate. In 2012 she relocated to NZ with husband James Cameron, who at the time paid $20 million for more than 1000 ha of Wairarapa farmland.
Three years ago, Amis Cameron executive produced Milked – White Lies In Dairy Land, a documentary film that ‘exposes the whitewash of NZ’s multi-million dollar dairy industry’.
The Carrfields Group is a 100 per cent family-owned company involved in farming, property and agribusiness.
Carr says it exports to over 40 countries around the world and employs approximately 300 employees and contractors across NZ and India.