Two of the country’s largest exporters are set to sail with a new freight partnership, in an attempt to cut rising long haul transport costs.

A new joint initiative between Silver Fern Farms and Fonterra wants to get New Zealand’s produce to the world’s markets, faster.

The two exporters have formed a freight partnership – Kotahi – which will look for ways to create greater efficiencies by coordinating land and sea freight operations. 

When it begins operating on August 1 Kotahi will oversee a third of all the containers leaving the country and once it is up and running it will bring other exports and importers on board.

Chief executive Chris Greenough says New Zealand is severely handicapped by our distance from our market; to such an extent that it costs us 10 percent of GDP annually.

 "Today the way we all manage our supply chain operations is all very much as individuals, and we all unfortunately have quite seasonal and volatile demand patterns which ultimately ends up in us wasting quite a lot of supply capacity that is available to us, and not getting the most out of the investments that have been made in the New Zealand supply chain, whether that be in trucks or trains, ports or ships.

“So at Kotahi our aim is to bring exporters and importers together to get the most efficient use out of the supply chain assets we have out there.”  

Kotahi must first get authorization from the Commerce Commission.

Meanwhile, Fonterra has also announced plans to build a new milk dryer at its 650 hectare Darfield site in Canterbury.

Fonterra is seeking to triple production at its Darfield site to help keep up with the increase in dairying in Canterbury – production is growing at between five and six percent annually in the province.

When the new dryer comes online in 2015 the Darfield site will be able to process 7.5 million litres of milk a day.

And finally, Fonterra has also announced it will be buying back full control of RD1.

It will be buying back Canadian firm Agrium’s 50 percent share in the company.