Council Has Big Questions For Great South On Oat Milk Factory

The question of whether Great South has complied with its Statement of Intent regarding the transparency to relocate the proposed oat milk factory to Canterbury, was discussed at council on Tuesday.

The Invercargill City Council has agreed to support Ian Pottinger’s Notice of Motion and formally ask Great South to explain the turnaround, at a meeting next month.

The ICC is a key funder of Great South and the relocation plan was announced by New Zealand Functional Foods (NZFF), which is raising capital for the factory project. Great South is a 49% shareholder .

Great South released its Beyond 2025 Southland Regional Long Term plan on June 28 which proposed a world-leading facility to process oat milk.  It announced the factory relocation to Canterbury 15 days later.

The project was something Great South had been working on for the past 10 years, and Mayor Nobby Clark said yesterday, that the communications has been poor and left a lot of questions around the council and the wider community.

Deputy Mayor Tom Campbell supported the motion but said it was essential that they withhold judgement or any future comments until they have given Great South the opportunity to talk.

Mayor Clark said he was notified very early in the process by the decision from the board of Functional Foods about their move to Canterbury.

The question now was whether Great South stays or exits the company, and while it was commercially sensitive, he said they still needed to have that discussion.

The other question was when did Great South board chair and interim Chief Executive Ian Collier know about the decision on the table and how did he vote?