Gallagher’s wild animal fencing launched to keep Kiwi cats and dogs under control

Electric fencing pioneer Gallagher Group has entered the Kiwi household consumer market with pet fencing, technology it offers Europeans to keep wolves from the door.

An old hand at keeping monkeys out of villages, humans, livestock and hungry wildlife separated, and lately, elephants off railway tracks in Tanzania, the Hamilton-founded and headquartered multi-national this week introduced garden pet security technology to retail shelves in New Zealand.

Gallagher Animal Management division chief executive Lisbeth Jacobs said a range of fencing technology has been offered in Europe for some time, whether to keep the neighbour’s cat out of the garden, chickens safe from foxes, or stop wolves and boars, now with protected status and returning in numbers, venturing close to homes and eating family pets.

In Canada and the US, Gallagher fencing keeps bears from the backyard.

“It’s a natural progression for us. We are so good at delivering electric fencing that is user-friendly and works. It’s been a need that’s not wellcovered,” said Jacobs.

The animal management business — Gallagher also has a security division, which supplies technology to some of the world’s most sensitive and heavily guarded business sites — was taking “a much more deliberate approach” to providing solutions, she said.

“We’re no longer just in the agriculture sector — we’re in the consumer sector now.” While the security business is snapping at its heels, animal management is still Gallagher’s biggest business, its revenue growing by 52 per cent between FY20 and FY24 to close the latest financial period at $225 million.

Belgium-born Jacobs, who has a PhD in engineering, joined the Gallagher-family owned company three years ago, when global animal management revenue was $170m. The division’s compound annual growth rate had averaged 9 per cent between 2020 and this year, despite the pandemic and economic volatility, she said.

The division employs 450 staff globally, including in its manufacturing bases in Hamilton and Australia. Of these, 100 work in Australia, where the division also has a trial farm. It has wholly-owned distribution operations in the US, Canada and Chile, and in Europe operates a 50:50 joint venture. Another joint venture in South Africa covers the African continent and there’s a partnership business in Japan set up 50 years ago by Sir William Gallagher, son of company founder Bill Gallagher who invented the electric fence.

Jacobs said the animal management business has “a whole lot of opportunities to grow”, particularly in the US, Canada and Latin America.

With her arrival at the business, it pivoted from a product-driven model to “purpose-driven”.

Jacobs said that’s not just marketing-speak.

“We have been using this approach internally for the last two or three years to really look at how we support our farming community. We used to do that heavily through selling products. That worked and worked well, people could find the products they needed with us, but we wanted to flip that around and say, “first, let’s understand what jobs our customers are trying to get done”.

“Once we understand that we can identify areas we can help them, maybe where a product doesn’t even exist yet. Farmers want to manage their land. It’s not just about building a fence, we ask what other problems do they have?

“We find solutions for what jobs they want to do, rather than saying ‘we’ve got an energiser . . . anyone want it?’. We flipped that around and develop product from that.” The strategy led to an organisational change and five new product solution business categories.They include an animal handling category and a land and water care category.

“Within land and care we are looking at liquid fertiliser monitoring. We’re looking at fuel monitoring, grain silo monitoring — all satellite connected so a farmer can manage it all through sensors,” she said.

“We are going to be launching a new lithium range of solar energisers.”