Villa Maria’s new owners have informed staff there will be job losses at the wine company’s Māngere headquarters as it continues to outsource operations.
The future of the site has been up for review since before May, when Newsroom revealed the business, now owned by Indevin, had decided to move the bottling of its UK-destined wines to Britain from early 2024.
Villa Maria is the largest New Zealand wine brand in the United Kingdom/Ireland, constituting about half of all bottling work at Māngere.
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Earlier this month a staff meeting was called at the Villa Maria headquarters, where chief supply officer Gareth Insley broke the news that Māngere winery and warehousing roles would be made redundant or de-established.
Indevin chief executive Duncan McFarlane was not present.
An employee, who didn’t wish to be named, said there were tears and expressions of disappointment and frustration during the meeting.
The employee said the situation had left him feeling lost and stressed after investing time and effort into the company.
“I feel a company like Indevin that claims to be proud NZ-owned yet sends jobs out of NZ making NZ staff redundant and uses the sustainability flag to justify their actions is a little hypocritical and only benefits its partners and not NZ.
“Sir George [Fistonich] the previous owner would never have done this and would’ve fought to keep Villa staff that helped build the Villa Maria brand to where it is today. However Indevin is quite the latter, a typical NZ capitalist company in hindsight.”
Future plans for the site are unknown, though very little activity would go on there if it was retained.
Indevin didn’t respond to Newsroom’s questions about how many staff were affected or plans for the site, saying it was in active consultation with staff.
The finance, administration and sales staff previously working from the estate have already been moved to a new office in Newmarket.
When contacted yesterday, Sir George Fistonich said he stood by earlier comments made to Newsroom saying he was extremely disappointed by Indevin’s decision to outsource operations.
He said by shipping the raw product overseas, Indevin was turning Villa Maria into a commodity wine producer. “That does nothing for the NZ wine industry and only serves to line the pockets of Indevin.”
“I spent 25 years establishing the current Villa Maria site at Māngere, buying up land and developing a world-class asset that produced award-winning wine. I worked closely with the likes of Tourism NZ and NZTE to promote NZ industry,” Fistonich said.
Fistonich founded the company in 1961 and operated it until 2021, when it was placed into receivership and sold to Indevin.
In May, Indevin chief executive Duncan McFarlane told Newsroom moving bottling closer to its target market unlocked a range of benefits, including a lower carbon footprint.
Wine produced at its Hawkes Bay and Marlborough vineyards will be shipped in bulk containers rather than individual bottles, significantly decreasing weight and size of its cargo.
