Companies dedicated to quality and safety

MEDIA STATEMENT

AgriQuality New Zealand
For immediate release

18 November 1999

Companies dedicated to quality and safety are awarded the AgriQuality Assurance Mark

The New Zealand Honey Producers' Co-operative in Timaru and Auckland-based Unitech Industries, are the first companies to be awarded the AgriQuality New Zealand Assurance Mark.

Malcolm Linn, General Manager of AgriQuality's Assurance Services, says that the efforts of Unitech Industries and the New Zealand Honey Producers' Co-operative in obtaining the Assurance Mark exemplify the dedication and commitment the companies have to quality and safety and to guaranteeing the standard of their production processes.

"There is a large number of food and agribusiness companies who understand that increasing the quality of their product is an investment in their success. With the AgriQuality Assurance Mark, there is now a way that they can promote their quality investment, verified by an independent agency with expertise and years of experience across the food and agribusiness industries."

Mr Linn says that the AgriQuality Assurance Mark can be used to verify a range of processes and claims across the food and agribusiness industries.

Holland's Honey's creamed honeys, produced by the New Zealand Honey Producers' Co-operative have recently been awarded AgriQuality's Assurance Mark. The honey, packaged in new tamper proof pottles with batch coding, will be on the supermarket shelves before Christmas.

AgriQuality has worked alongside the company to develop a comprehensive quality assurance system relating to grading, the creaming process used to produce the honey, determining the type of honey by pollen analysis, as well as hygiene, packaging, record keeping and traceability standards.

Holland's Honey Marketing Manager Gavin Frankpitt says AgriQuality's Assurance Mark offers real advantages for suppliers, producers, processors and consumers.
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"The Assurance Mark is a major boost to our product's profile. By independently verifying the processes we use, we are giving our customers the security and trust that it is being produced to the highest possible standards. They can be 100% sure it is exactly what it says on the label."

Unitech Industries, a company with a strong history in quality assurance for the manufacture of nutritional formulations, has a number of products which have AgriQuality's Assurance Mark, including the nutritional sports food supplement range ProActive Nutrition, already in the shops. A new addition to the ProActive Nutrition range is Prolete, an advanced meal solution designed for active people.

The company's robust quality assurance programme has been necessary because of the unique production issues related to dry powder blending of value-added dairy products. Unitech Industries quality programme ensures their products maintain the high level of food manufacturing standards that meet export requirements.

Unitech Industries CEO Geoff Hanham says the AgriQuality Assurance Mark label offers real advantages for suppliers, producers, processors and consumers and enables customers to recognise measured quality performance.

"We've got a proud history of quality assurance, stemming from our close association with the dairy industry. Because of its true to label claims, the Assurance Mark takes the excellence of our standards that one step further, giving customers even greater confidence in the finished product."

AgriQuality New Zealand, a State Owned Enterprise formerly part of MAF Quality Management, was established in November 1998. AgriQuality is an independent supplier of testing and assurance services to the food and agribusiness industries.

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For further information please contact;
Vivien Pullar
Ph (04) 4999-111

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