Fonterra too big for its gumboots - ex National minister
The botulism scare shows there are problems with dairy giant Fonterra's size and level of transparency, says former deputy prime minister Wyatt Creech.
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The botulism scare shows there are problems with dairy giant Fonterra’s size and level of transparency, says former deputy prime minister Wyatt Creech.
Mr Creech, the co-founder of Open Country Dairy and one of the directors of Kaimai Cheese, says putting the entire dairy industry into the hands of one group was taking a huge risk.
“Unless there is a high level of transparency and a high level of openness, the risk of this sort of thing getting a little out of hand is far too big, and I think it does need a high level of supervision to make sure that this doesn’t happen.”
He also expressed concern about transparency and communication between the top leadership in Fonterra and farmers who were part of the co-operative.
“There might be more to it than meets the eye, these inquiries might find something we don’t know about, but on the surface if you’re just getting the information the public gets, this looks appalling.”
But Mr Creech told TV3’s The Nation it was probably too late to break up the mega dairy co-operative.
He said the best way for Fonterra to salvage the situation was to hold a genuinely independent review of what went wrong.
NBR staff
Sun, 11 Aug 2013
Sun, 11 Aug 2013
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Fonterra too big for its gumboots - ex National minister
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