The last processing season for the Hastings McCain plant is now set. January 31, 2027. After that, the facility that turns Hawke’s Bay vegetables into frozen food goes dark.
The company announced the closure back in March. It gave growers and workers a timeline.
It has not budged. Two mayors asked McCain to pause. Hastings Mayor Wendy Schollum and Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Will Foley jointly requested a hold while growers looked for a buyer.
The company refused at the end of May. That door is shut.
The Green Party now wants the government to look at buying the plant. MP Steve Abel, who sits on the Primary Production Committee, raised the idea during a recent visit to Hastings. He did not announce a policy.
The Greens do not have one yet. But Abel said the party is thinking hard about it. “We are not averse to the idea that there are instances where strategic assets, such as a food-processing facility, should be protected for the broader national good, and if that means some public investment, so be it,” he said.
What is at stake here is not just one plant. The Hastings facility processes vegetables for McCain’s frozen-food lines.
That is a direct link between Hawke’s Bay growers and the national food supply. When the plant shuts, that link breaks. The vegetables still grow.
But the infrastructure to turn them into frozen product for store shelves disappears. Abel framed the issue in terms of food resilience.
“The challenges that we’re facing with loss of mills and food-processing facilities with the energy price issues – we have specific strategies to address all of those things,” he said. Energy prices matter here. Processing plants are heavy power users.
McCain cited costs as a factor in the closure. If the market cannot keep a plant running, the question becomes whether the public should. The Greens believe there are cases where the answer is yes.
A food-processing facility qualifies, in their view, as a strategic asset. National food security is the argument.
If private industry walks away from essential processing capacity, the state may need to step in. That is not a standard Green position. It is a response to a specific situation.
The political landscape in the Tukituki electorate is not unified on this. Not every candidate agrees a government buyout makes sense.
The closure puts jobs at risk. That alone draws attention. But the deeper question is what happens to the region’s vegetable-growing sector when its main processor disappears.
Growers supply the plant. Without it, they lose their primary customer. Some may find other markets.
Others may not. The mayors tried to buy time.
McCain said no. The company is sticking to the January 2027 shutdown date. That gives growers and politicians a window. It is not a wide one.
The Greens are floating an idea. Whether it gains traction depends on how many people see a shuttered food plant as a threat to national security, not just a business closure.
Abel described the issue as top of the party’s mind. He said the loss of mills and food-processing facilities across the country is a pattern. Energy prices drive it.
The Greens have strategies, he said. Whether those strategies include buying a frozen-vegetable plant in Hastings is still an open question.
