Working model
Organic by-products
Food waste and other suitable organic by-products are kept out of landfill where practical.
About Rawhiti
A working farm with a responsibility to do better.
Rawhiti Farm sits on Pukeora Station, just outside Te Aroha. It is being rebuilt around accountability, practical systems and a circular model for food, energy and nutrients.
What Rawhiti does
Simple in purpose, serious in execution.
Rawhiti takes suitable food waste and organic by-products and converts them into pork protein, while investing in systems that can manage effluent, produce energy and return nutrients to land responsibly. The full model is a future target, not a claim of completion.
Operating
Pigs and pork
Feed is converted into pork protein for New Zealand consumers through a working farm system.
Invested / improving
Effluent management
Investment is focused on covered Kliptanks, a screw press separator and better systems after past failures.
Planned toward 2027
Energy and nutrients
The future model includes methane/biogas, electricity and nutrients returned to land responsibly.
Leadership
A change in focus from 2024 onward.
Thomas Nabbs joined Rawhiti full-time as CEO on 1 February 2024. The site treats this as the start of a more deliberate operating period: clearer control, consultant input, infrastructure investment and a “never again” mindset around environmental failure.
Values from the business plan
The tone is practical, compassionate and local.
Compassion for animals, team members and the environment.
Belonging in the local community.
Pride in making a useful contribution while facing hard lessons honestly.