Saturday was the annual Leaderbrand Landowners do. They are really well-done events. We met at the racecourse at 3pm and then went off to see the new Salad House. Thank goodness we were wrapped up warm as the Salad House is very cold. There are two 9 hour shifts and one 6 hour cleaning shift each day. Talking to one employee, she said yes, they are all wearing thermals under their factory gear.
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| We all had to put hair nets on, wash our hands and those with open shoes needed little booties as well. |
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| This is the cabbage line of the coleslaw. They are taking the core out and cleaning up the outer leaves. |
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| Here is the red cabbage shredder. (Notice the blue booties in the background) |
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| ..and the carrot shredder... |
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| They get through 20tonne of carrots every two days |
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| ...and the cabbage shredder. |
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| Now onto the fancy lettuce line. Cores out and heading for the water bath. |
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| This part of the production line sort of tosses it in the air so that the water falls off |
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| After two washes they head on up to the packaging unit |
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| Just a close up |
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| Once it is dried it drops down a shute into a bag - but only when the correct weight of salad is ready to drop |
Then we went out to the nursery which is a very long hothouse and the trays are planted with 250plants and gradually move along rollers until by the time the plants have grown sufficiently they are at the delivery bay. These are plants that get planted out. The next stop was the baby leaf paddocks and tractor housing and workshop (many many tractors and other machinery)
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| Baby Spinach |
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| This is basically mown with a special sort of mower which doesn't cut the leaves. Just enough for the days order is taken off, the yellow bins taken to the Salad House and packed for delivery the next day. |
Then it was off to the dinner. Much to my disgust we were at the Kale table. AND it wasn't Dai Henwood, but Ben Hurley who was the MC. Thank goodness we knew a bit about what Family Feud was as it comes on just before news on 3 - and of course Alex had the game last Christmas.
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| Duncan was our Team Leader - and unlike these two contestants, knew to ring the buzzer as soon as possible and then think of an answer |
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| This is Gordon McPhail who we deal with calling up the two finalist teams. We were WAY ahead of any other. |
In the last round we were up against a lady who was very quick on the buzzer but then came up with a silly answer, so we were winners again! Then they split us up into 3 couples (Nic and Nicki had to drop out as they were Leaderbrand employees.) We were asked three questions. Name a famous Gisbornite (winning answer was Kirkpatrick which we got) The second question was Other than the All Blacks name a famous NZ team. We said All whites as they had just had their chance at the World Cup, but the most favoured answer was Silver ferns. the last one was what's another word for naked. We said nude which was the top answer, edging out Laurel and Chris who said Bare. But Amanda and Stu got all three - Stu is a manager on a block which crops for Leaderbrand , Amanda milks cows for the Waimata Cheese factory. They had got married last month, but hadn't taken a honeymoon. We were all thrilled that they won the trip to Melbourne. They dont have passports yet, so quite an adventure for them!!
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| The winning team |
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| Stu, Nic, Amanda, me, Duncan, Laurel and Chris (Nicki is in a chook mask at the back????) |
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| Ben Hurley gives us our prize. |
We get flights to Auckland, Accomodation at Sky City, tickets to Family Feud TV recording, and a night at the Comedy Festival. This is something we would never have organised for ourselves, so we are really looking forward to it - next April or May. Chris and Laurel got a voucher for dinner for eight at one of Gisborne's nicest restaurants.
A great night! I don't mind kale so much now.
