translated from Spanish: Manuka loses trial in exposed animal abuse and losses of more than $5 billion

Bad days for Manuka, the dairy company Manuka, the largest in grazing production in Latin America, as it faces the defeat it suffered in courts by the unjustified dismissal of agricultural technician, Juvenal Torr is, a process that exposed not only the animal abuse practices that were accused last year, but also the economic loss scenario facing the firm.
“Having been shown the accounting report of the company (translated), he points out that since 2009 the company has never made a profit,” a phrase that Manuka’s accountant, Dany Cortés Villalobos, in the court’s ruling, has never made a profit.
Torres’ case is the first judgment of several similar lawsuits brought by workers since the end of 2018.
It is that the dismissal letters have been readjusted according to the rise of losses. This is how the most recent, with the same wording as the one that appears in the ruling favorable to Torres, states that “for the last three years, the company has had negative results totaling $5,111,678,753. Indeed, in 2016 the company lost $1,832,811,000.- the year 2017 lost $1,608,622,000.-and during 2018 we carried $1,667,518,003.- (preliminary amount prior to adjustments and auditing) sums that are not sustainable in time. These results are mainly explained by (i) increased production costs, (ii) increased administration costs, (iii) adjustment of biological asset values, (iv) decrease in operating income, and (v) an unfavourable rate of change in the peso against the dollar.”
All the elements that the company attempted to establish as the liability of the dismissed workers were discarded by the court, which stated in the judgment that it clearly “observes that the risk of economic losses is the company. On the one hand, the mortality due is due to mismanagement, something not attributable to the worker but risk of the employer. On the other hand, the company has never made money (according to the defendant’s evidence) but despite that during the ten years of loss it continues to expand and without closing or going into liquidation, a fact that together with removing force from the claims around the echo loss (since it seems counterintuitive to maintain a deficit economic unit for a decade) denies plausibility to the selection of a worker with a monthly remuneration that is at the base of the remuneration scale of the company’s campus.”
Problems with former workers are not the only ones Manuka has, as last year he was indicated by his low standards of animal welfare, which were also recognized in the trial.
The production manager of Area Seca, Gonzalo García, in 2014 had been noted in an internal summary of the company as one of those responsible for the killing of hammers and other aberrant practices against 1,500 calves, which generated national scandal and International. The explanation he gave in the process was that 2017 there was a significant decrease in livestock mass, with approximately 2,300 positive tuberculosis calves, which involved 2,300 fewer heads for the period 2018-2019 in the Dry Area.
Company responsibility
The declaration of losses and bad animal welfare practices, are given in parallel with the deployment of its general manager, Cristián Swett, who has announced as a goal next a “liquidity event” for the company’s IPO or the integration of new Shareholders.
The outbreak of 2,300 cases of bovine tb in calves in 2017 is a sign that Manuka’s health standards contradict the company’s statement about its “over-industry” practices, all in the midst of the open process regarding the prosecutor of the calf massacre case seeking the extradition of the New Zealander, Zachary Ward, a former production manager and charged with the case.
The Manuka Group is a company incorporated in 2005 in Chile by New Zealand farmers, who in 2008 acquired the 19,500 hectares of the former Hacienda Rupanco. According to the intention publicly stated on 5 June 2010 by Manuka, the goal was to reach 70 dwellings in 2020 with a production of 300 million liters per year. In 2016, however, the goal was postponed to 2022 and today looks very far away.
Manuka currently has 46 rooms, however its general manager made its way to Economy and Business of El Mercurio on February 28 of this year that aims to build 8 rooms in just two years to reach 54 and another 13 between 2020 and 2022 to reach 67 , all while reducing staff by citing an unsustainable financial situation, which the court did not believe to the firm, as established in its judgment.
Read the full statement at the following link.

Original source in Spanish