Last Kiwi-made lawnmower rolls off the line

The last New Zealand-made lawnmower is rolling off the line, as Steelfort shifts manufacturing overseas.

The Palmerston North business’s lawnmower manufacturing facility is winding down at the end of the week after more than 70 years of operation. Steelfort’s mowers will now be built in Beijing.

Steelfort owner and managing director John Mcoviney said it was a hard decision to end a seven-decade-old operation, especially when most of the affected staff were loyal employees who had been with the company for 20 to 30 years.

He said it was a relief that only a couple of the dozen staff would lose their jobs outright. Management found roles for five workers in other parts of the company, and most of the rest opted to retire.

The lawnmower division had been losing money. Over the past two decades comparatively stricter labour laws and higher wages made it hard for New Zealand to compete with Chinese manufacturers, Mcoviney said.

Lawnmowers were one of Steelfort’s first products when it was established in 1946, but it’s not commercially viable to build them in-house any more.

Mcoviney said the company tried a variety of different costsaving measures, including putting workers on four-day weeks, in an attempt to retain the Lawnmaster brand as New Zealand-made.

Closing the facility brought sadness, but it was a necessary sacrifice to keep a family-owned Kiwi company afloat, and its 100 staff employed.

‘‘We held on for as long as we could . . . years longer than anyone else did.

‘‘Masport, our biggest competitor, hasn’t made mowers in New Zealand for 15 or 20 years.’’

The new Lawnmaster manufacturer in Beijing has supplied products to Steelfort for almost seven years, and Mcoviney was confident it could maintain the same level of quality.

‘‘The customer won’t see any difference, the mowers will be the exact same product. It’s just the costs will be significantly less for us.’’

This week the facility will be finishing off the last of a threemonth stockpile of mowers to tide over Steelfort until the first Chinese-built mowers arrive in September.

Steelfort’s commercial products, including fabrication and refrigeration, would not be affected by the changes and distribution would still be done on site.