Category: Latest News

The region’s four territorial authorities are set to take the next step in exploring a joint approach to delivering water services under the Government’s new Local Water Done Well plan. After resolving to investigate joint ownership and delivery of water services in 2019, this work was interrupted by the previous Government’s Three Waters policy, which proposed to take ownership of...

Rockit Global Limited Chair, John Loughlin announced today the appointment of Grant McBeath as its new Chief Executive Officer. Grant will succeed Mark O’Donnell who in June announced his upcoming retirement. The appointment follows a search that included international candidates for the role. John Loughlin said, “the Rockit Board is delighted with the appointment of a proven leader with a...

Located on Omahu Road Hastings, purposefully on the doorstep of Flaxmere where he grew up, local businessman Taurus Taurima’s Topline Training Academy is changing lives. While his own story is inspirational and grounded in many of the challenges faced by the rangatahi his programme has been created for, Taurus has shown that with hard work, positive influence and role models,...

Steam is rising from the boilers again at Pan Pac after a 16 month clean up at a cost of over $300 million. Fair to say it wasn’t the best way to celebrate 50 years of business. Cyclone Gabrielle struck with all its fury submerging the Whirinaki site with over 2 metres in water and more than 750,000m3 of silt....

Two local businesses with strong Māori heritage are backing Te Matau a Māui Hawke’s Bay Māori rugby team as it prepares to challenge Te Upoko o Te Ika Wellington Māori Wellington for the Sir Eruera Tihema Tirakatene Shield, the Ranfurly Shield of Māori rugby. Hastings based Geotech engineering firm RDCL and civil infrastructure firm Tūpore Infrastructure have been confirmed as lead...

One year on from an initial analysis of the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle, a new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has found the Hawke's Bay horticultural sector needs at least $410 million in additional funding to recover to its pre-cyclone state by 2030.   BCG’s report, Hawke’s Bay Horticultural Sector: Economic recovery update: a year after Cyclone Gabrielle, has found...

Divine table grapes that herald the start of a brand new industry in Hawke’s Bay have been coming off vines in Maraekakaho. It is the first harvest of Greencollar, an innovative Japanese company determined to expand the currently tiny table grape industry in New Zealand. Greencollar featured in The Profit in early 2023. The harvest follows a complex and intricate...

Rockit Global Limited Chairman John Loughlin has announced that Chief Executive Officer, Mark O’Donnell has decided to retire from 31 March 2025. An international search will commence to find a replacement. The timing allows for the search and good handover to a successor, to be completed around the 2025 harvest and the early sales season for that crop. Mark O’Donnell...

Local lines company Unison Networks is partnering with the Faraday Museum of Technology this month to celebrate 100 years of powering communities. Founded on 19 June 1924 as the Hawke’s Bay Electric Power Board, Unison has grown from a small lines company in Hawke’s Bay to a global group of specialist electricity companies. To celebrate this milestone, Napier’s Faraday Museum...