Two South Island Silver Fern Farms meat plants will begin processing bobby calves seven days a week during the peak of the season this year.
Seven-day-a-week processing is due to begin at the end of July at the Waitane plant, on the outskirts of Gore, and at the Fairton plant, Ashburton.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper said farmers had alerted the company to the fact they ran a seven-day-a-week business and it needed to cater for that.
Mr Cooper said it was pleased to offer dairy farmers a better service and workers a good financial start to the season.
Silver Fern Farms' new approach would provide extra work during the winter, a traditionally slow period for meat workers, he said.
Processing seven days a week also meant farmers would not have to carry bobby calves over the weekend, reducing the risk of oversupply and poor welfare standards, Mr Cooper said.
Despite strict rules around care, dealing with bobby calves could often be time-consuming and frustrating, making it difficult for farmers to maintain welfare standards at a high level, he said.
While their main focus was service to suppliers and animal welfare, an increased market share for the company as a side effect would be "great", Mr Cooper said.
Otago Southland Meat Workers Union secretary Gary Davis said he believed Waitane and Fairton were the only two plants in the South Island which would process bobby calves seven days a week.
The new approach by Silver Fern Farms meant the Waitane plant would employ more people to cater for workers with other weekend commitments, he said.
Mr Davis said the international market had placed more value on bobby calves this year so "every company in New Zealand is trying to woo farmers" to get them.
"A few years ago farmers were killing them all" so it was "quite strange" to see such a push for bobby calves, he said.
"There is obviously money to be made."
- Rebecca Ryan