Nelson, 3 Nov 16 - Nelson-based peanut butter manufacturer Pic’s Peanut Butter has won a prestigious 1 star in the 2016 Great Taste Awards. Judged alongside 10,000 blind-tasted products, Pic’s Crunchy Peanut Butter was one of only two New Zealand products to receive an award. Great Taste, organised and run by the Guild of Fine Food, is globally acknowledged as one of the most respected food accreditation schemes for artisan and speciality food producers and is often referred to as the ‘Oscars’ of the food world. The UK-based awards attract thousands of entries each year from food producers around the…

Hastings, 3 Nov 16 - New Zealand, Hawke’s Bay: Etel Limited, New Zealand distribution transformer manufacturing business owned by Unison Group, has invested in an Indonesian transformer equivalent, purchasing a 90 per cent shareholding in Lucky Light Globalindo, which supplies the Indonesian market. While a lot smaller, the Indonesian transformer plant is also seen as a hub for Unison's ambitions into other ASEAN countries, reports New Zealand Herald. "The lifespan of their transformers is about 10 years and ours is 40 to 50 years, so we can implement technology that can increase the life of the assets from 10 years…

Napier, 3 Nov 16 - The installation of an auger conveying system for Hawkes Bay Proteins kept a team fromNapier Engineering busy over this last Labour Weekend. The manufacture by the NEC engineers  was not without its challenges factoring in ease of access for maintenance in the future. Time down is a major factor and has to be kept to a minimum hence HB Protein’s client being so impressed with the short time frame for installation which resulted in minimal loss of production time for the client - that all important consideration for contract manufacturers when they look at the installation or maintenance of equipment.…

Napier, Thurs 3 Nov 16 -   Scales Corp has agreed to buy Hawke's Bay apple grower, packer and marketer Longview Group Holdings for $20.5 million, adding capacity to sell fruit into the fast-growing Asian market. The Christchurch-based company's Mr Apple subsidiary will buy 100 percent of the Longview shares and 22 hectares surrounding a coolstore and packhouse, expanding Scales' total planted apple orchard by 85 ha, with a further 30 ha of bare land for development, it said in a statement. The deal will immediately lift earnings per share 4 percent in the 2017 financial year. Scales has previously forecast…

Auckland, Nov 2, 2016 - Auckland's Harbour Bridge SkyPath cycling and walkway crossing gets resource consentChief Environment Judge Laurie Newhook approved SkyPath's consent in the Environment Court today. Auckland Council said in a statement this afternoon it "welcomed" the result.  In July the council voted unanimously in favour of the project being built by HRL Morrison and Co's Public Infrastructure Partnership Fund - a private organisation. If constructed as planned the SkyPath would be 1km long and 4m wide and would run from Westhaven Marina on the CBD side of the bridge to Northcote Point on the North Shore. It would have five viewing platforms,…

United Kingdom 2 November 2016 -  - RoboVent, the leading provider of clean air technologies for manufacturing, has announced it is expanding its operations to Europe in response to the increased need for clean air solutions. Gary Keene, a 30-year veteran of the industrial ventilation and dust collection industry, will serve as the company’s technical director and lead the European team. RoboVent is expecting to add an additional 20-30 employees in Europe by 2019 in order to meet growing demand overseas. “Expanding RoboVent’s operations to Europe is a direct result of the needs of our international clients,” said Jim Reid,…

Epson New Zealand will showcase a range of projector and projection solutions at this year’s Facilities Integrate event, as the company looks to highlight professional installation solutions.The range on show are designed for business, education and staging. The Facilities Integrate show is set to take place over two days on November 3 and 4, at the ASB Showgrounds in Greenlane, Auckland. The NZ trade exhibition is designed specifically for the facilities management and system integration industries. Headlining this year's show will be a high brightness static image demonstration from the Epson’s EB-L1505UNL, the world's first-ever 12,000-lumen 3LCD laser light source…

Auckland – New Zealand’s hospital and healthcare industry is on the verge of a digital breakthrough, New Zealand Health Information and Technology (NZHIT) chief executive Scott Arrol says. Hospitals, clinicians, specialists and private health providers are advancing rapidly into the digital world which is beginning to change the way patients are being treated, Arrol says. He was speaking today at the NZHIT annual meeting in Auckland today. “We have a fast growing, a strong and innovative health technology industry enabling the delivery of quality health and social services that also provides the platform for international growth. NZHIT is the peak…

KPMG has analysed trends in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from 2013 to 2015, based on Overseas Investment Office (OIO) approvals for the past three years. The latest analysis shows that New Zealand’s strongly-growing economy is providing an attractive environment for FDI. Key findings on the analysis include: The United States and Canada were New Zealand’s most significant source of FDI over the last three years, based on gross consideration data provided by the OIO; followed closely by the Australia, China and Singapore. Singapore accounted for 20% of FDI in 2015, measured by gross consideration, making Singapore the largest source of…

Steven Adams says his first big purchase after signing a 140 million dollar contract extension was a new phone.  The 23-year-old center yesterday put pen to paper to stay on with his NBA team the Oklahoma City Thunder for another four years.However Adams revealed the final days of negotiation were stressful, for his agent in particular, after he dropped his cellphone in an ice-bath. "I dropped my phone in the cold tub and it didn't work for like the past three days and stuff (contract negotiations) was going on. "My agent was trying to contact me and I was like…

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (Nov. 1, 2016) – HighJump, a global provider of supply chain network solutions, announced today that Auckland, New Zealand-headquartered Big Chill Distribution has selected HighJump’s Enterprise third party logistics solution and the associated Pulse data mining and analysis tool to manage the company’s new temperature controlled distribution center. Big Chill began operations in 1996 with a single truck, operating between Auckland and the seaside community of Tauranga, on North Island’s east coast. Currently, the firm provides express delivery of chilled and frozen food products throughout New Zealand with a fleet of some 190 line haul and metro trucks…