Minister of Agriculture visits Luisetti Seeds

The Minister of Agriculture Hon Damien O’Connor accompanied by Jo Luxton Rangitata MP, Ashburton Mayor, Neil Brown, Ashburton District Council Chief Executive, Hamish Riach and Ashburton District Councillors, Stuart Wilson, Liz McMillan, Lynette Lovett and Diane Rawlinson, visited Luisetti Seeds Ashburton branch recently.

Over a working morning tea, Vincent Luisetti and Mark Frampton gave the guests a brief history of the company and its significance in the production of food products for New Zealand and its expanding domestic and export business.

The Minister commented on the fact that the company was 100% New Zealand family owned, something that is becoming increasingly rare amongst New Zealand agricultural processors and manufacturers.

Luisetti Seeds applied for a ‘border exemption’ for the PETKUS engineers and technicians from Germany, Serbia and Australia (NSW) to assemble the new seed processing plant in July. After requesting a meeting with the Minister, he kindly offered to visit and see first-hand the significance of the new processing plant and how it would benefit our growers, New Zealand food production and food security, and how it will expand our ability to meet the demand of our export customers.

The Minister saw a bright future for the expansion of the New Zealand arable industry including the contribution it will make to the production of nonanimal protein.

Vincent gave a brief insight into the work Luisetti Seeds is carrying out reducing the level of toxic gluten epitopes in flour in association with Plant and Food Research, and the Otago Medical School.

The visit concluded with a tour of the plant where our guests were able to view Barlennium turf ryegrass being cleaned and packed for American domestic lawns and Daikon radish being cleaned and packed for the production of pickled and grated radish in Japan.

At the time of the visit we were also loading a container of Howlong cocksfoot used for pasture seed in Australia.