The seasonal shut-down of meat processing plants is occurring up to 11 weeks earlier than usual while some companies are working short days as predictions of a 23% reduction in lamb numbers prove accurate.
Silver Fern Farms has cut the season at some plants in South Canterbury, North Canterbury and the North Island, while the Alliance Group has been working short days and short weeks at its Southland plants.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper said its plants at Finegand in South Otago and Waitane in Gore would be "going for a while yet".
But other SFF workers have been told of the seasonal closure this month of the Canterbury cutting room in Christchurch, and meat works at Fairton (Ashburton), Pareora (Timaru) and Takapau in the North Island.
About 50 Pareora workers would move from sheep meat to beef, but the planned closures were eight to 11 weeks early.
Mr Cooper said the lower kill had been well publicised and companies had to match demand with supply.
The secretary of the Otago-Southland Meat Workers Union, Gary Davis, said Alliance Group plants in Southland had been working six-hour days or four and a-half-day weeks and had not worked a Saturday for at least three weeks.
The large Lorneville plant near Invercargill has not worked a Saturday for the last three weeks and Mr Davis said daily kills were 3500 per chain compared with the usual figure of 4000.
He believed Alliance would start its seasonal shut-down at least a month early, in late April instead of late May, having opened in December.
Senior Alliance management could not be reached for comment.
Last spring, Meat and Wool New Zealand's Economic Service forecast a reduction of six million in the number of lambs, from 26.5 million to 20.4 million, available for slaughter this season due to land use change and drought.
The favourable grass-growing season had also conspired, with 45% of the expected kill processed by the end of January compared with 38% at the corresponding time last year.
Traditionally, plants in Canterbury start and close their season earlier than those in the South, but this year it appears all plants would have short seasons.