Along with Tegel and Ingham’s, Brink’s chicken is one of New Zealand’s big three chicken brands.
Brink’s was founded in 1954 by the Van Den Brink family and continues to be owned by the family. It makes up 18% of the chicken market, employs 500 staff and has a turnover of about $200 million a year.
The company has just been given the green light for a new free-range broiler chicken operation in the north Waikato township of Maramarua, housing 360,000 birds.
With the treatment of chickens under increasingly widespread public scrutiny, Brink’s has stressed that its flock is raised in large barns and not subject to injection with hormones and steroids.
However, while pushing its free-range, antibiotic-free brand George and Jo’s earlier this year, it raised the ire of small chicken producers Bostocks Brothers; the Bostocks complained that George and Jo’s logo, showing a happy farming couple, represented the brand as a small, family-run business when the reality was very different. Brink’s countered that the logo was a representation of real farmers. The dispute continues.
Brink’s has helped a range of community organisations, including Camellia House and Mobility Dogs. It donates to Eat My Lunch, a company that donates 5000 lunches to kids in need every week.
Members of the Van Den Brink family have a variety of interests and business ventures. Tony Van Den Brink is perhaps the best-known, particularly in his role as the head of the Auckland Polo Club.
2018: $100 million