AFFCO

AFFCO is the allied farmers freezing company and it was built here to provide jobs for the community. 86% of the Moerewa community are Maori and although there are shops here they don’t supply many jobs for us.

Most of the people that are and have been working at AFFCO are an array of skilled staff from packers, stockmen, butchers, boners, compliance staff (internal auditors, lab samplers) engineers, electricians, vets and management teams.

Every year they have to close down to upgrade and when this happens work is put on hold and employers struggle. On the 1st of March 2012 120 workers were locked out of AFFCO and half of the car park was empty. 180 staff were left with their jobs. Most of the people that were locked out had children going to our school.

Our community relies on AFFCO as a source of income. If Affco wasn’t established families in Moerewa may have to move elsewhere and our town could disappear.

Written by Oseanna - Year 8
Illustration by Quilah - Year 1