New Zealand-based fiber-materials firm Rubisco is relocating its hemp decortication line as a part of a broader technique to advance a vertically built-in natural-fiber platform.

The corporate, which is backed by NZ agribusiness big Carrfields, stated it’s shifting the manufacturing unit from Christchurch – the island’s largest metropolis and a significant logistics hub – to Ashburton. Each are positioned on New Zealand’s South Island, within the Canterbury area.

Considering ahead

Rubisco chief government Man Wills informed Farmers Weekly the corporate has outgrown its unique hemp-processing footprint, with demand for hemp fiber and hurd accelerating as producers seek for lower-carbon inputs for textiles, development and composites.

The brand new Ashburton facility — positioned nearer to the crop base and the farming community that provides Rubisco — is predicted to be operational by early 2026.

“The choice to maneuver operations to Ashburton is each sensible and forward-thinking,” Wills stated, as it’ll scale back transport distances, reduce emissions and find main processing on the level of fiber origin. Proximity to growers and rising market pull for sustainable supplies will permit the corporate to scale manufacturing and “proceed to innovate,” he stated.

Down the highway

Ashburton sits roughly 85 kilometers (about 50 miles) south of Christchurch, down State Freeway 1 by intensive agricultural nation. Growers supplying hemp stalks are clustered round Ashburton and the broader Mid-Canterbury plains, so shifting the decortication line there locations main processing contained in the manufacturing zone, relatively than hauling uncooked stalks north to Christchurch for first-stage processing.

One in all New Zealand’s largest agribusiness teams, Carrfields has been aligning hemp manufacturing, fiber processing and value-added manufacturing beneath one coordinated construction for a number of years.