Category: Business

Source: Radio New Zealand

Diesel is now only about 20c a litre cheaper than 91 – even though 70c of the price of a litre of petrol is tax.

Data from petrol price monitoring app Gaspy showed that across the country, the national average reported price for 91 was $3.31 a litre, and for diesel it was $3.13. For 95, it has reached $3.51.

91’s price is up 37.67 percent over 28 days, while diesel’s is up 81.75 percent.

Gaspy spokesperson Mike Newton said diesel would normally be expected to be 70c cheaper than 91 because of the petrol tax, but it was only 20c. “The diesel drivers are definitely getting it worse because they’ve still got to pay their road user charges.”

Diesel is more expensive to make than petrol but the impact of fuel excise tax usually conceals this.

Billy Clemens, head of policy and advocacy at Transporting New Zealand, said diesel was usually the second-largest cost for its member businesses, after wages.

“It’s a cost that sits typically around 15 percent to 20 percent of overall costs…. And road freight’s pretty famously a pretty low margin game. So our members are in a position whether they can either pass those costs on or end up in a really difficult position with their business viability.”

He said about half the organisation’s members were likely to be using a fuel adjustment factor.

“That’s a surcharge, essentially. You might have a base freight rate, but you add on a certain surcharge based on how much the diesel price has increased over a set figure. If you’re a freight customer you might be seeing that in freight invoices coming through. That’s a sizeable cost on businesses right across the country, whether you’re in retail or construction or logging… there’ll be a real flow-on impact.”

Clemens said shortages were not widespread and seemed to be driven by demand patterns.

He said transport was about 15 percent to 25 percent of costs for businesses in the loggin industry, and up to 12 percent in grocery.

Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said his concern was more about the volume of diesel. Runing out of petrol could be annoying on an individual level but running out of diesel could have much larger consequences, he said.

Gaspy data shows that the cheapest 91 petrol is at Orams Marine Village – which caters to boats rather than cars, and where fuel is $2.96 a litre. Pukekohe Pak’n Save was next, at $3.08.

Newton said some of the factors that normally drove differentiation in pricing aroudn the country were not as relevant at present.

Previously, local competition had often driven certain regions to be cheaper than others. “It’s hard to know if tha still applies in the current environment because there are not a lot of discount days going on at the moment,” he said.

“In the past when you’ve got discount retailers operating in an area, they tend to drag the price for the whole area down. Then it comes down to remoteness and population density. Places that are off the beaten track and don’t have a lot of customers are going to have higher prices.”

Auckland’s Waiheke Island, for example, is recording prices near $4 for 91.

Newton said Mangawhai had been an area with cheaper prices recently. It had a new Gull station open about five months ago. “Often when a discount retailer opens up somewhere they have introductory pricing, NPD’s really well known for it. They’ll set really low prices for a f w months and often it just brings the price for the whole area down.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Fonterra delivered a strong first half result, beating market expectations, while lifting its full year earnings outlook and forecast farmgate milk price.

The co-operative said a “favourable product mix and resilient global demand for high value dairy Ingredients and Foodservice products” enabled Fonterra to deliver and better than expected result.

The dairy co-operative’s net profit for the six months ended January rose 3 percent, with group revenue up 9 percent.

Key numbers for the six months ended January compared with a year ago:

• Net profit $750m vs $729m
• Revenue $1.231b vs $1.107b
• Earnings per share 45 cents vs 44cps
• Normalised earnings per share 51 cps vs 47cps
• Return on capital 11.2% vs 10.4%
• Interim dividend 24cps vs 22cps
• Special Mainland dividend 16cps – Capital return of $2 a share – expected to be paid 14 April

Current forecast vs previous forecast

• FY26 forecast earnings guidance from continuing operations between 50 – 65cps vs 45 -65 cps
• Current season forecast Farmgate Milk Price midpoint $9.70 per kgMS vs 9.50 per kgMS.
• Reaffirms target to close Mainland underlying earnings gap of $300m – FY28 to match FY25

Outgoing chief executive Miles Hurrell said the changes to the forecast Farmgate Milk Price and earnings reflected improvement in global commodity prices and the co-op’s strong underlying

margins and cost control.

However, he said significant volatility remained, particularly as the conflict in the Middle East continued.

“The underlying performance of Fonterra’s continuing business is stable, allowing the Co-op to return all earnings associated with the Mainland Group business and lift our forecasts for the remainder of the year ahead,” Hurrell said.

“Demand for our products is strong, and we’re focused on our plan to maximise both the Farmgate Milk Price and earnings.”

The co-op also delivered a return on capital of 11.2 percent, in line with its target range.

“The first half of the year has been shaped by strong milk flows, with the Co-op collecting record milk volumes in the South Island so far this season,” Hurrell said, though several adverse weather events had put pressure on operations.

“Our performance shows that we are growing the high-value parts of our business through optimal allocation of milk solids across our product mix, which is driving a strong return on capital for shareholders and unit holders.”

Managing geopolitical volatility

Hurrell said war in the Middle East was having an impact on its supply chain through the region, with potential to increase Fonterra’s inventory levels and costs over the course of the second half of the year.

There was also the potential for further volatility in global commodity prices, he said.

“The conflict is a complex and dynamic situation that is changing daily, but we are confident that we’re on the right track to get product to customers.”

He said Fonterra’s business was designed to manage volatility.

“Our scale and strong relationships with customers and logistics provider Kotahi will help us to navigate through these challenges better than most.

“With this in mind, we remain focused on delivering on our strategic targets.”

Where the growth is coming from

The company said it was focused on deepending its position as a world-leading provider of dairy ingredients.

“In line with the co-op’s strategy, we have continued to focus on optimising our product mix by allocating milk solids effectively to the highest accessible demand.

“With milk collection tracking at 2.3 percent growth year-on-year, we have leveraged flexibility in our asset network and increased the manufacture of our highest returning product portfolios, such as cheese and proteins,” it said in its interim report.

Fonterra said it was also expanding its Foodservice business in and beyond China to grow earnings.

“Diversifying our cream portfolio and expanding our customer base remains a key focus. Anchor Easy Bakery Cream continues to perform strongly in China, valued for its functionality, quality and accessible price point.

“The cream has now launched in Indonesia and Thailand, with other markets across Southeast Asia to follow.”

In addition the company said it was investing more in operations.

“During the half, we continued to invest in our assets to drive growth in our Foodservice and Ingredients businesses, and in projects intended to improve energy security, operational resilience, and reduce the Co-op’s emissions.”

It was also investing more in science and technology.

“In line with our strategy, the co-op has continued to advance its innovation pipeline across products, processes, data and new business models.

“Our team and dedicated research and development centre remains focused on core dairy and advanced nutrition, manufacturing performance and capability, and strengthening in-market application capability to support long-term growth, efficiency and resilience.”

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LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/fonterra-delivers-strong-half-year-profit/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Fonterra’s first half result is expected to deliver to expectations, but with a murky outlook as the war in Iran threatens global supply chains, along with rising energy and other costs.

Generate KiwiSaver investment specialist Greg Smith said strong demand for dairy products as well as the low value of the New Zealand dollar would help Fonterra through the ongoing volatility, though there could be some disruption to its cheese exports to places such as the United Arab Emirates, as an example.

“So there are some impacts there, and product that potentially will need to be re-routed,” Smith said.

The market consensus for the six months ended January was for revenue in the order of $11 billion, with an underlying profit of $976 million and a normalised net profit of $445m.

The first half dividend was expected to be about 21 cents per share, in addition to a special Mainland dividend in a range of 14-to-18 cps, following the completion of the sale of Fonterra’s Mainland Group of global consumer and associated business to Lactalis for $4.22b.

Where is the growth coming from?

The company was forecasting growth in its ingredients and food services business to fill any gap left by the sale of the consumer business by the year ending July 2028.

“Unlike other company results, I think the focus this time in particular (will be) less on the numbers… and I think that’s principally reflecting the strategic reset that’s underway,” Forsyth Barr senior equities analyst Matt Montgomerie said.

Two key focuses will be on where Fonterra’s debt levels, following the divestment and how the ingredients and food services businesses were planning to fill the earnings gap left by the sale of the consumer businesses.

Forecasts

• FY26 forecast earnings guidance from continuing operations at between 45 and 65 cents per share.
• Current season forecast Farmgate Milk Price midpoint $9.50 per kgMS – range of $9.20-$9.80 per kgMS.
• Target to close Mainland underlying earnings gap of $300m – FY28 to match FY25.

“Delivery and execution and messaging around that target is the key for the next few years,” Montgomerie said.

Who will lead Fonterra?

Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell resigned this month following a 25-year career with Fonterra, including eight years as chief executive after the resignation of the late Theo Spierings in 2019, who failed to connect with farmer-shareholders and left the company in a poor financial position, with high debt levels to deal with.

Montgomerie said farmers will want to see someone who operates in a similar mode to Hurrell, who was able to relate to farmers on a day-to-day business and deliver on the turnaround strategy.

“The farmers are looking for consistency and continuity. Obviously, change can bring about new perspectives, but I would be surprised if there are any notable changes in strategic direction with the new CEO,” he said.

“It feels like there’s a strong desire to provide sort of an opportunity for someone internally to continue the strategic direction of the business. But I think the key thing is that reliability and trust from a farmer point of view, but then also Fonterra’s customers all around the world.”

Smith said the next chief executive will have “big gum boots to fill”.

“I’m sure there’ll be a swathe of high quality internal candidates put forward but also no doubt there’ll be a global benchmark process,” he said.

“I don’t really think there’ll be a significant change in strategy, given all the effort that has gone into refocusing and simplifying the business.”

The bigger picture?

Smith said the sale of the Mainland business will give the New Zealand economy a much needed boost.

“The Mainland sale is going to inject potentially around $3 billion, if not more into the Kiwi economy,” Smith said.

“So that’s a positive story for the second half of the year, economically.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/fonterras-first-half-expected-to-deliver-despite-impacts-of-war-in-iran/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Two bottles of sparkling water. One, a Pam’s product has two Health Stars. The other, a Schweppes brand, has 4.5.

It prompted one shopper to email RNZ and ask: What is going on?

Shouldn’t water with the same ingredients have the same rating? And why isn’t water five stars?

Foodstuffs said in this instance, it was a labelling problem.

“The rules changed in 2020 and plain water is now automatically given a five-star rating, while unsweetened sparkling water gets 4.5,” a spokesperson said.

“We can see why this looks confusing at first glance. Health Star Ratings follow a standard approach across New Zealand and Australia. Most products are calculated, but some, like plain water and unsweetened flavoured water, including sparkling, are automatically given high ratings.

“In this case, the rating on our Pam’s sparkling water is out of date following a 2020 update to the rating system. The product hasn’t changed, but the label hasn’t caught up.

“That’s on us, and we’re fixing it, so customers have clear and consistent information.”

But experts say the water situation highlights some of the confusion that still persists about the scheme.

Health Star ratings are set using a standard system that considers the balance of energy, saturated fat, sugar and sodium, offset against protein and fibre. Points are also awarded for fruit, vegetable, nut and legume content.

Consumer NZ senior research writer Belinda Castles said Foodstuffs was quite late in updating its water rating.

But she said, generally, products were displaying the star rating that the calculator suggested they should.

She said the main issue with the scheme was that it was voluntary. “Only 36 percent of the products that it’s intended for have the rating so that’s not particularly helpful.

“Consumers need to be able to look at the food supply as a whole because the consensus is the Health Star rating is useful. We don’t have time to be looking at all the nutrition information panels on the back.”

She said there was concern that some companies were cherry picking their healthier products to have the star.

“They’re going ‘ok we’ve got this five-star product we’ll put the rating on our fours and fives but we’ll leave it off the ones and twos’.”

She said people should also only use it to compare similar products. “The calculator has slightly different calculations depending on what the product is. Like if it it’s a cooking oil, for example versus a dairy product versus a cereal… use it to pick a healthier cereal, don’t use it to pick a cooking oil versus a cereal.”

She said the intended target was for 70 percent of products to have a rating at the end of last year and it was only halfway there.

But Rob Hamlin, from the University of Otago marketing department, said the regime was ineffective when it came to driving consumer choice.

“This disconnect between our legislative powerhouses with regards to nutritional labels and reality has led to some very unfortunate outcomes.

“The Heart Foundation tick is what’s known as a binary cue… It was an image that communicated by being there or not being there… we do know the Heart Foundation tick was effective because it was much more similar to the pictorial nominal cues that the food industry used to effectively communicate with consumers.”

The Heart Foundation tick was discontinued in 2016.

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LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/4-5-or-two-star-water-health-labels-confuse/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Responsible investment platform Mindful Money warns that KiwiSaver investors are increasingly exposed to human rights abuses – but one KiwiSaver manager says the list of companies to avoid is becoming too long to be realistic.

Over the past six months, Mindful Money said investments in companies with exposure to human rights abuses rose 43 percent, reaching more than $3.5 billion. This has been fuelled by both an increase in the number of companies identified as violating human rights and increased investment in those companies.

It said public surveys consistently showed that avoiding human rights abuses was the No.1 concern for KiwiSaver members.

“These findings highlight a growing gap between what New Zealanders want from their investments in terms of human rights and where their money is actually going,” said Mindful Money founder Barry Coates.

In recent years, attention has increasingly focused on the activities of major technology companies, particularly around surveillance, social media harms and their use in conflict situations, he said. Companies identified as raising human rights concerns included Meta, Tesla, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Palantir Technologies.

“KiwiSaver providers need stronger policies to screen out companies linked to serious human rights harms,” Coates said. “New Zealanders deserve confidence that their retirement savings are not contributing to exploitation or conflict.”

Concerns have also grown over investments in companies linked to the conflict in Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine. KiwiSaver investments in companies providing weapons, surveillance technology or other support linked to these conflicts increased 14 percent between March and September 2025, reaching $856 million.

Companies receiving increased investment during this period included IBM, Booking Holdings, Palantir Technologies, Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar, but Koura founder Rupert Carlyon said the bar was too high.

“We look at a company like Caterpillar, which is on their list of human rights issues, because they supply machinery into Israel.

“It’s also a company that does a huge amount of good in other parts of the world – it’s extremely hard to measure.”

He said clients were most concerned about returns and fees.

“My very strong view is actually, if you really want to make a difference, then you’re going to make much more of an impact, if you don’t support them as a customer than as an investor.

“Airbnb… you’re going to stop investing in Airbnb, because you think there are human rights issues? Does that mean that, you know what, we’re never going to use Airbnb ever again?”

Pathfinder Asset Management founder John Berry said his KiwiSaver funds avoided those companies.

“Based on the approach taken by Mindful Money, they are taking a values-based approach to human rights and other issues, and I think it’s entirely appropriate,” he said. “They disclose their methodology and the approach they’re taking, and they give the managers the opportunity to respond.

“I think that’s a really well-developed and well-thought-out approach.

“I think it’s good that there’s a range of options for, you know, some fund managers may focus primarily on just making money. Other fund managers, like Pathfinder, focus on putting a values-based lens, really strong values-based lens over our investing.”

He said individuals and fund managers should make their own decisions about what they were comfortable with.

“I think the starting point with thinking about human rights, and thinking about it from a fund-manager perspective and an investor perspective, is to think about what is your mission with investing.

“There are two sides to it. One is you can consider human rights from a values-based perspective, that you care for people, planet, animals and you want to sleep at night with your investments.

“The other side is you believe that companies that comply with human rights will deliver better long-term returns, because they will be trusted, they’re good corporate citizens and they will have stronger reputations, so they’ll be financially better.

“I actually believe both those things are true.”

Coates said avoiding problematic companies would likely be more effective than trying to change them.

“These are major global corporations and New Zealand investors have only a small share of their capital,” Coates said. “It is unlikely that fund managers sending letters or voting a few shares will change their practices.

“If companies are linked to human rights violations, fund providers should respect the wishes of their clients and avoid investing in them.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A group of North Auckland oyster farmers are calling for more transparency on how Watercare came to its final calculation on compensation over a sewage spill into the Mahurangi River last year, that contaminated tens of thousands of oysters during the businesses’ peak season.

Wastewater poured into the Mahurangi River for over 17 hours, after a power surge tripped up the pumps at Watercare’s Warkworth Street wastewater plant in late October.

Reviews found that a faulty surge protection component at the plant meant the pumps could not restart, and a critical overflow alarm that was not working had delayed the discovery of the overflow.

Watercare estimated that half of the 1200 cubic metres of overflow went into the Mahurangi River, while the remaining was contained to the plant.

It announced on Thursday its last tranche of compensation payment – $750,000 – for Mahurangi oyster famers and the wider aquaculture industry, which came on top of the $2 million already paid to eight affected oyster farms.

It said part of the $750,000 was for a ninth oyster farmer who made a subsequent claim, and part of it would go towards Aquaculture New Zealand (AQNZ) for it to distribute to all impacted oyster farmers.

AQNZ, representing the affected farmers, said the “full and final settlement” did not cover lost income, cancelled sales, reputational harm and ongoing disruption to production.

An AQNZ spokesperson said the organisation was offered half a million in the final round of compensation, but had not accepted the money yet, as it felt Watercare had not made it clear how that money should be used.

Its CEO Teena Hale-Pennington said in a statement that farmers needed to see how Watercare assessed the losses and reached those final figures.

“At this stage, neither AQNZ nor individual farmers have received the independent assessment findings for their farms, nor information outlining the assumptions used in Watercare’s assessment.

“Without access to this material, farmers are unable to fully understand how assessments were undertaken or how conclusions were reached,” she said.

Meanwhile, Watercare maintained that its processes were robust.

“We commissioned an independent loss assessment to understand the financial impact of the October event on oyster farmers, resulting in the farms being shut down by MPI (Ministry for Primary Industries) during a critical part of their harvesting season.

“This process has informed Watercare’s approach to resolving the claims,” said its chief operating officer Mark Bourne, who added that the total compensation covered the losses attributed to the event.

Hale-Pennington said it was frustrating that Watercare’s decision had been described as final, without the agreement of those most affected.

Tim Aitken, whose family business – Mahurangi Oysters – lost a large portion of its 80,000 dozen of oysters following the event, said they had been treated “like muppets” by Watercare.

“They haven’t entered into the conversation in a transparent way, they’ve treated us quite badly, I believe,” he said.

Aitken said he and other oyster farmers have handed Watercare five years’ worth of income and expenditure, in the hope of entering into a transparent negotiation.

Aitken said none of Watercare’s assessors had chatted with him in person about how they came to those compensation figures.

He said the $200,000 he received in compensation was just enough to cover staff wages.

Aitken said the reputational damage and ongoing impacts such as the loss of clients, were not being factored into the compensation.

“We sell weekly to chefs, and we sell fresh oysters, so everytime we get closed we lose a chef, we lose a restaurant because we can’t guarantee supply.

“Our business right now is hanging on, but only just,” he said.

Aitken said these days, they were struggling to sell oysters due to the lost trust by their clients.

“People now talk to us and say ‘we don’t wanna buy your oysters, they’re the ones that are in the shit harbour’.”

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