Milmeq to be split between Wiley and Mercer

Privately held New Zealand engineering company Milmeq will be split and sold in the coming months.

The company’s chilling and freezing capability has been sold to New Zealand listed company Mercer Group, effective from 1 March 2019.

Mercer Group supplies equipment to the food processing sectors under its two operating companies: Mercer Stainless, which works in stainless steel fabrication for the dairy and medical industries, and H&C, which provides automated handling systems to the dairy and meat processing industries. Milmeq will form part of the H&C business.

The sale will see Mercer Group acquire Milmeq’s range of chilling and freezing systems, including tunnels, plate freezers and other products sold under licence, which it will continue to sell under the Milmeq brand.

Milmeq’s meat processing system design and engineering capability has been acquired by long-term project partner Wiley & Co with the transfer expected to take effect in January 2019.

Wiley will integrate a number of Milmeq existing team members into its New Zealand operations, which extends their existing capabilities and ensures continuity of service to Milmeq’s existing clients.

The two companies have worked together for many years on abattoirs around the region and when the opportunity arose to bring the two together Wiley jumped at it.

“It was an easy choice for us to integrate the Milmeq team with Wiley. We have a longstanding partnership with the company, having worked with them on numerous meat projects over the years. For me, the reason this really was the obvious choice is the alignment of Milmeq’s values and culture with our own. As our teams have worked together this has shone through and is so important. We can’t wait to bring their team’s experience in beef, lamb, venison and goats to Wiley,” said Wiley Managing Director Tom Wiley.

All existing project contracts will be completed by Milmeq and new contracts will be transitioned to Wiley.

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