5 Sep 2013

Farmers waiting for Fonterra board report

12:51 pm on 5 September 2013

The Fonterra Shareholders Council says while the company's operational review is a start, farmers are waiting for the board level report into the false-alarm botulism incident.

Ian Brown is chairman of the shareholders council which keeps an independent eye on Fonterra's direction and performance on behalf of the co-operative's 10,000 farmers.

He said he's comfortable that Fonterra's operational review has identified what went wrong, and what the co-operative needs to do to fix the problems so it doesn't happen again.

But he said farmers are asking high-level questions, and they're waiting for the board's report into the incident to be released so they can get some high-level answers.

Mr Brown said the board report will take a more in-depth look at Fonterra's risk management.

He says farmers are pragmatic and understand the realities of dealing with a perishable product, but believes the contamination scare is an opportunity to look at systems within Fonterra at a governance and management level.