On April 12, Fordes Pet Food in Heddon Bush, near Winton, was engulfed in flames, which Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) resulted in a "total loss" of the premises.
The fire was initially labelled as suspicious.
The incident report released by Fenz showed the fire was instead caused by an electrical fault.
"Subsequent inquiries, examination and the evaluation of the physical remaining evidence at the scene excluded any area of suspicion and we were satisfied the fire has an innocent explanation," the report said.
The pet food plant was undergoing constant upgrades and recent work had been completed, which included a lot of work to upgrade the electrical wiring.
"Examination showed the fire started in the roof space ... burn patterns and arcing to wiring suggested an electrical event had occurred.
"The fire spread rapidly, several of the walls and freezers were lined with expanding polystyrene that melts at low temperatures and was easily consumed by [the] advancing fire," the report said.
Fordes Pet Foods owner Cam Moir said it was a relief the fire was not suspicious.
"When it came out it could have been arson, that was a worry, but that is the default, they always assume arson first."
Hours after the blaze, staff, owners and the community banded together to get the business operational again.
Mr Moir said the business had been saved by repurposing the main freezer into a new processing plant.
It was all thanks to a "bloody amazing" support network, Mr Moir said.
"All sorts of people came together to make it happen; we were very lucky all the contractors and all the staff pulled their weight to make sure we could get something going.
"We engineered new rails, bought new hooks, knives, aprons, gumboots and other equipment that were melted by the fire, as well as chemicals, a new water pump and poured concrete — all within 48 hours to ensure that we can process hygienically."
He said it was lucky the Ministry of Primary Industry worked with them to get up and running, and the staff of the pet food factory went "above and beyond", to resume operations as soon as possible.
A new factory was in the pipeline, fitted out with state-of-the-art machinery, but no definite date was set due to the business wading through the consents process.
Despite the lack of a full factory, the business and the employees were making do with what they had.
"We’ve been processing the best we can but we are a bit limited in what we’ve been able to do and not do this year, so we’ve had to hire more staff and do everything more manually."
