Silver Fern Farms chairman Eoin Garden likens farmers' investing capital in their co-operative to the way they invest in their farms.
Every year, sheep farmers retain ewe lambs to replace ageing ewes in their flock, and he said equally, companies needed fresh capital to invest and remain profitable.
Unfortunately, he said, farmers had not always seen the need to invest in their meat co-operatives, usually because they were able to get their stock killed when needed and because debt funding was readily available from banks.
Times had changed, and Mr Garden said SFF needed a new capital structure to fund a new marketing model driven by consumer needs, new processing technology, and to reduce debt and lessen its share-redemption risk.
That structure allowed shareholders to exchange existing shares for a new class of ordinary shares, and to participate in rights and bonus issues, a move it hoped would raise about $80 million.
The changes also allowed for outside investment, but control of the company was enshrined in farmer-suppliers.
Mr Garden said it was about investing in the future of the company - both financially and in technology such as X-ray scanning and robotic processing - and also about investing in an extension of their farm business.
"Those technologies are about reducing the cost and adding value to product through to the marketplace. Those technologies are about getting high yields, optimising returns for portions of the carcass. It is all about adding value and, on top of that, investing in the marketplace."
The recent debate about SFF's capital structure revealed some confusion, he said.
"There was a lot of confusion between ownership and the need to recapitalise to make it profitable. The two are not necessarily the same.
"You can have the smartest ownership structure, such as a family trust, to protect farm ownership, but if the farm is not well capitalised, you have not invested in fertiliser or pastures, and it is not profitable, then the next generation which has access to ownership is not going to thank you for it."
Support for SFF's new structure indicated many shareholders understood the need for an injection of capital.
Just how much would be illustrated in the coming weeks as they decided whether to invest in the company.
