Further pain looks inevitable as the industry addresses surplus sheep-processing capacity in the South Island.
Burnside workers were yesterday told the need to improve productivity and align declining deer numbers with processing capacity meant the 126-year-old Dunedin plant had to close.
Staff have one week to make submissions and will learn next Tuesday if the Dunedin co-operative will proceed with the immediate closure of the ageing and apparently uneconomic plant.
The 57ha site could be vacated by late August and then sold.
PPCS chief executive Keith Cooper said his hand had been forced by Deer Industry NZ forecasts of a decline in the number of farmed deer from 736,000 in 2006 to 500,000 next year.
Also, the plant needed significant upgrading to NZ and European food safety standards.
Burnside had outlived its useful life and complying with food safety rules would require the whole site to be upgraded, including its freezing facilities.
The site configuration and cost of maintaining production was neither competitive nor sustainable.
Deer processing would be moved to the company's four other venison plants - two in Southland, one in Christchurch and another in Hokitika.
Most of the decline in deer numbers has come from sheep and beef farmers quitting herds, leaving it to more specialised operators, but also reacting to a sharp decline in export prices in 2001-02, when they fell from $10 a kg to about $4 a kg.
Prices had only just started to recover.
Traditionally, there has been seasonal work available at PPCS's lamb-cutting plant at Silverstream, near Mosgiel, and at Finegand, in South Otago - work Mr Cooper said would be offered to Burnside workers.
He said the company was about halfway through matching processing capacity with stock numbers.
Last week, this saw the closure of its Oringi works in Hawkes Bay, with the loss of 466 workers, and late last year of the Te Kauwhata deer works in Waikato, with 35 jobs gone, and of a lambskin plant in South Otago, with 25 jobs lost.
PPCS hopes to complete the process by August.
It seems likely more South Island meat workers could lose their jobs.
Mr Cooper said in an interview a forecast decline of two million in sheep numbers next year alone would have to be factored into the company's processing capacity, but that did not necessarily mean plants had to close.
Night shifts could be dropped or individual processing chains at works closed to match capacity.
He acknowledged the suffering of workers who had lost their jobs, and said the capital investment at two southern plants should give those staff some "security."
The company was investing $1.5 million at Waitane, near Gore, and $12 million has been spent at Finegand, in South Otago, on an effluent treatment system.
A biofuels plant was also being built there.
Agriculture industry restructuring had so far been left to PPCS, a move Mr Cooper said showed the company was taking a leadership role.
Alliance Group chairman Owen Poole said, when approached, that geographically his company's eight plants were well spread, and "Alliance has no immediate plans to do anything with a reduction in capacity".
The future of the sheep meat industry was discussed at a PPCS meeting in Oamaru last night, attended by about 100 shareholders.
Chief executive Keith Cooper outlined the company's vision, which included lower debt, improved profitability, fewer, more efficient plants, a link between suppliers and customers, a rebranding strategy, customer focus and an integrated supply chain from conception to customer.
Chairman Eoin Garden said the vision did not preclude pan-industry initiatives or involvement going forward.
Growing job losses:
PPCS Windward skins 25
Fisher and Paykel 430
Tamahine 50
PPCS Burnside 138
