Headline: Fonterra’s string of failures
This matters so much because Fonterra is inextricably linked to Brand New Zealand – when they fail, we all do
Today’s independent report into the WPC80 events at Fonterra paints a worrying picture about the high error rate within the company, the Green Party said today.
The report found that there were 21 key ‘decision points’ where choices had to be made within Fonterra which could have led to better outcomes to the Botulism scandal.
“This report shows the Fonterra was working with an unacceptably high error rate,” said Green Party agriculture spokesperson Steffan Browning.
“This matters so much because Fonterra is inextricably linked to Brand New Zealand – when they fail, we all do.
“Fonterra are to be commended for running this independent inquiry and for committing to implement the recommendations, but so they should. This commitment is just the beginning of a lot of work they need to carry out to regain trust.
“The last of the 21 ‘decision points’ was that Fonterra underestimated the potential scale of the reputational risk, and overseas responses to the botulism scare. I hope it’s very clear to them now what a scare like this can do to Brand New Zealand.
“While New Zealand has almost all of our economic eggs in the dairy basket, we need Fonterra to be reliable and maintain a spotless reputation. Any mistake by them impacts on all of us.
“We now have to wait for the findings of the Ministerial inquiry for what regulatory changes need to be made to make sure this sort of disaster for Brand New Zealand doesn’t happen again,” said Mr Browning.
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