Agribusiness and Food

Our lawyers provide fresh advice and advocacy across the diverse range of issues facing New Zealand’s largest Agribusiness and Food organisations, including food and beverage producers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers. From providing quality corporate advisory services, to managing government relations and guiding clients through litigation, our clients see us as their go-to experts.

Our expertise lies in our extensive experience acting as trusted legal advisors to some of New Zealand's largest companies in the Agribusiness sector, and our in-depth knowledge of the issues differing industries face.

Bringing together specialist expertise across the firm, we advise on issues relating to dairy, fisheries, horticulture, viticulture and aquaculture, and food and beverage for the likes of Fonterra, Lion, and Sealord. We work with them to navigate a wide variety of regulatory issues, environment and planning concerns, and commercial considerations. This can include anything from aquaculture and fisheries legal reform, resource consenting and compliance, liquor licensing, and compliance with the Advertising Standards Authority, to the capital restructure of large food & beverage businesses.  

With extensive international investment and trade experience as well as significant domestic expertise, we provide comprehensive, commercially focused advice to clients.

Our experience includes advising:
    

• Woolworths on regulatory issues of strategic importance.
• Aquaculture New Zealand on aquaculture reforms and commodity levies.
• Fonterra on its $552 million sale of its Chinese dairy farms.
• Lion on regulatory issues and consumer and marketing law concerns.
• New Zealand King Salmon Co.'s on its proposal of national significance (for two private plan changes and nine resource consents) lodged with the Environment Protection Authority and referred to a Board of Inquiry by the Minister of Conservation.
• Fonterra on its capital restructure and the introduction of its ‘Trading Among Farmers’ scheme.