Since 2014 the Plate to Pasture Awards have recognised the excellence of farmers who consistently supply quality stock to meet consumers’ needs.
The Plate to Pasture Award is about recognising farmers who live and breathe food and understand what their consumers want from quality red meat and the people who produce it.
For this year’s Plate to Pasture Awards we have dialled up the focus on food: ‘Food people challenge - Promote your red meat’
This year we are holding six regional awards events for the top 10 suppliers of lamb, prime beef, bull beef, and deer in each of our Silver Fern Farms regions. Our regional events are about celebrating our farmer partners around great food.
We find the top 10 farms in each stock category based on criteria from supply information from the 2016 year.
JUDGING CRITERIA:
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Specification and presentation
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Shareholding in the co-operative
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Supply timing (with a weighting for being able to supply in times when we need stock for customers’ chilled programmes)
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Supply volume
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Supplying direct through their Silver Fern Farms Livestock Representative
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Loyalty over multiple seasons
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Farm Assurance status
Western North Island
Duncan and Rhonda Oliver - Otorohanga
Rangitoto Lands
Eastern North Island
Leicester & Margaret, Callum & Sarah, and Phillip & Juliette Gray - Waipawa
Gray Bros
Waikato/Bay of Plenty
Simon and Eve Saxton - Tuakau
Karnali Downs Ltd
Northland
Douglas and Anne Conn - Dargaville
Woodburn Park Tangowahine Ltd
MEET OUR JUDGES
Anne-Marie Allen - Silver Fern Farms 2016 Plate to Pasture Award winner
Anne-Marie and husband Chris farm ‘Annadale’ at Ashburton Forks. They showed a particularly strong focus on mastering sustainable farming techniques (water, nutrients, biodiversity, animal welfare, farm financial performance) and stock quality in order to meet the needs of consumers – the key factor behind their farm business being named the Plate to Pasture Award winners for 2016. Anne-Marie has extensive business management experience. She completed both the Burnside Hart Silver Fern Farms Co-operative ‘To the Core’ course and the Institute of Directors’ Leading Co-operative Essentials course in 2016.
Justin Courtney - Head of Communications and Sustainability Silver Fern Farms
As the Head of Communications and Sustainability Justin leads the sustainability programme as well as all internal and external communications at Silver Fern Farms. Justin has spent 15 years in communications and marketing roles predominantly in the agribusiness sector in Australia, Europe and New Zealand.
Dan Jex-Blake - Director Silver Fern Farms
Dan was elected to the Silver Fern Farms Board in 2013. He is the Managing Director of Mangapoike Ltd, a 24,000 stock unit pastoral farming company near Gisborne. He was invited to take part of the 2014 Rabobank Global Farmers Masterclass and has completed the 2014/15 Fonterra Governance Development Programme. Together with his partner Tam they were named the Sheep Industry Awards Trainer of the year in 2016.
Dr Richard Mitchell - Professor and lecturer of the Otago Polytechnic’s Bachelor of Culinary Arts programme
A Professor in Food Design at the Otago Polytechnic’s Food Design Institute, Richard has many years of experience in front of house in tourism, hospitality and the service sector and more than two decades researching and publishing on hospitality consumer behaviour, and design thinking for food.