Having had a good feed of steak and chips with an egg on top at Joe’s Garage in Dunedin, I was looking forward to catching up with Tony Gamble (Gamble Forest Harvesting Ltd) for my tour of contractors located around Dunedin. He must have thought I was important because we took his town ute rather than the work ute.
Tony runs a swing yarder/ ground-based combo for City Forests. Tony took the business over from his Dad, and all up, the business has worked for City Forests for close to fifty years.
The recent windblow event in the Southern South Island and rationalisation of contractor numbers by City Forests has given Tony the opportunity to expand his business, increase his volume and at the same time provide City Forests with very competitive rates. It’s a good example of where Contractor and Forest owner can remove constraints to increase productivity and control harvesting costs.
After picking up a packet of cameo cremes, we headed off to catch up with Olly (Ollerenshaw Logging Ltd). On entering Olly’s site, you could see everything was in place and the house-keeping was immaculate. I bet you his safety, production and value recovery are also top notch.
The container would have to be one of the tidiest I have ever seen (you could have eaten your cameo cremes off the floor). Not surprisingly, Olly cranked up the generator, put on the jug and asked me whether I wanted a cappuccino or macchiato. They do things differently down in Otago.
Olly runs a ground-based operation in City Forests and the crew is currently tidying up windblow. All up there were approximately 1,000 hectares to tidy up in City Forests. The TRV they are getting from these stands 800 to 900 tonne per hectare, so all up just under a million tonnes to pick up. Olly has a wicked sense of humour and the hour or so that we were there flew by.
Having finished my cappuccino and a couple of cameo creams and solved the forest industry’s issues, we headed off to catch up with Shane Griffith (Shane Griffith Logging). Olly’s parting comment was that it was bluff oyster season and I should expect oysters for dinner later that night at Tony’s place.
We met Shane at home. Shane is a long-term FICA member and runs four harvesting crews in Otago, mainly for Wenita. Over a coffee and a couple of super wines we had a really good talk about all aspects of running a logging business. Key takeaway was Shane’s intimate understanding of the numbers and how he uses this to make better decisions in his business. Shane also had well laid out succession plan that he had developed in collaboration with their Forest Manager.
We left Shane’s to head up to our final visit of the day Grant Stewart (Stewart Logging Ltd). Grant has recently rejoined FICA, having previously left when he’d had an issue and didn’t believe he’d had the support he deserved from FICA.
I was able to reassure Grant using some specific examples recently of where FICA had supplied support to members. Grant has one fully mechanised hauler crew working for Wenita. They returned home two years ago having spent a ten-year tour of duty in Gisborne.
We talked about how magnificent the trees and logging was in Gisborne, but also how challenging finding good workers was. Grant has two sons Matt and Daniel working in the business and has his succession plan sorted, but he is not sitting still.
He has recently purchased a new Tigercat Feller Buncher with a fixed head to reduce breakage, increase production and value recovery. I understand the fixed felling head is the first of its type developed by Tigercat, it might warrant another trip down that way when it arrives in the country.
All up a great day in the field, topped off by a home-cooked meal with Tony and Maree. Not Bluff Oysters but better.
