If you go to the company’s home-page, you will be told Cedenco is “Where good food begins”.
Tell that to Lillian Gray, an organic kumera grower at Tolaga Bay.
Lillian could be heard on Radio NZ’s Te Ahi Kaa last night banging on about market gardens in her neck of the woods being health hazards.
She said…
“These gardens here are so full of chemicals that they actually make our Maori people sick.”
And a bit later –
“There are so much chemicals in it…that’s why I believe our Maori people are sick – too much chemicals.”
Alf mused on why dear Lillian didn’t mention any other people getting sick. Only Maori.
Are these chemicals somehow doctored to discriminate ethnically with their health-harming impacts?
But Alf was amused, too, when the bloody interviewer asked “So who’s Cedenco?
Which country is she living in?
Cedenco is big deal in the food-growing business, employing 88 full time and more than 400 seasonal staff in New Zealand.
And as anyone tuned into the news last week would have known, it was placed into receivership on Monday, although ANZ Bank said it would provide seasonal funding to keep the company going until it could be sold.
An NZPA report said Cedenco has the largest tomato processing factory in the southern hemisphere at Echuca in Victoria, and is one of New Zealand’s biggest vegetable processors, with a Gisborne factory, a processing plant at Whakatu in Hawke’s Bay and a business in Ohakune.
Its products include fruit and vegetable powders, purees, pastes, frozen vegetables and fresh produce.
Oh, and according to Cedenco’s web-site –
Working with long standing grower partners or from its own farms, experienced agronomy teams in each key location develop supply programs from the seed which are tailored to the specific needs of individual customers.
Harvesting and delivery of each crop is carried out as each item reaches its optimal maturity, taste and quality. It is then quickly processed and packed through one of several modern facilities into a range of added-value foods.
The whole supply process is monitored and controlled under international third party audited food safety standards.
Looks like Lillian should find out who sets those standards, and let them know about the mischief being done chemically to the health of the Maori people.
