Marie Stewart and TEMCO

(continued from Part 1 published 2 July 2021, by a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous)

"More eggs for housewives" BOPT 20 Aug 1949
Courtesy of Papers Past

During the War years there were serious shortages of many things, and one was eggs for city dwellers. Marie Stewart was one of the initiators of the Tauranga  Co-operative Egg Marketing Society Ltd in 1943. She was assisted and encouraged by an English friend Joyce Laurence (Lorrie) who lived in New Zealand during the war.  Farmer’s wives could bring their baskets of eggs to a rudimentary egg depot near the Railway Bridge on the Strand extension and have them put under a light to check their quality. Any that passed were purchased and went into the pool of eggs to supply American servicemen, hospitals and urban households. At that time eggs were fetching 4d a dozen and often were bartered for other items. Poultry food was also in-ferior and very expensive.

Marie and Lorrie and the 1930 Model A Ford coupe
Image courtesy of Mackersey Family

In most centres these egg pool initiatives were under the wing of the local dairy co-ops but in Tauranga it was very soon set up separately. Marie also gave talks at var-ious meetings of the CWI in the mid 40s on ‘Egg Production.’  Marie sold the stock and plant from Cheriton in Waihi Rd around 1951 due to poultry disease problems, and travelled to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to help her old friend Lorrie on her poultry farm.

In the early 50s a levy of 1d per dozen was imposed by the Tauranga Co-operative Egg Marketing Society Ltd which financed the Society’s new premises. Profits were made, bonuses were paid and the Department of Agriculture began to recommend the area for intending poultry farmers.

Temco advertisement showing new building
Bay of Plenty Year Book, 1955, Astra Publishing
Image courtesy of Julie Green

A new building was opened ten years to the day after the formation of the society, helping business to grow tremendously. They ended up with twenty trucks delivering eggs from Thames to Opotiki and the eastern Waikato. In 1965 a mash plant opened at Mount Maunganui for the manufacture of poultry food, and there were TEMCO (having become the Tauranga Egg Marketing Company) branches in Rotorua, Taupo and Whakatane.

The TEMCO fleet in front of the mash plant at Mt Maunganui, 1960s
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries (Pae Koroki Ref. 02-117)

Many readers will remember the TEMCO processing plant situated on Cameron Road between 16th and 17th Avenue from the 1960s. I believe it was closed in the 1980s and the building was repurposed. Latterly it was an organic food outlet.

Packing eggs at Temco, 1963
Image courtesy of Bay of Plenty Times and Tauranga City Libraries (Pae Koroki, Ref. gca-5360)

By 1964 the city growth had squeezed Marie and her day-old chick enterprise out into the country. She moved operations to Taniwha Place next to the Wairoa River. Her niece Margaret remembers that in earlier times the newly hatched birds were careful-ly packed in octagonal boxes and transported to the Service Car (a forerunner of buses) depot from whence they were distributed rapidly all over the country. Eventually she produced 250,000 chicks annually and some even traveled as far as New Caledonia.

Marion was the first woman to serve on a primary producer board (1969-1973) and was awarded an MBE in 1974 for her services to the poultry industry and other com-munity organisations, such as the Plunket Society and the local Hospital Board.

Miss Stewart (at left) leaving Government house with her MBE
Image courtesy of Mackersey Family

She contributed to the New Zealand Farmer magazine for five decades and in the year of her death was given the poultry industry’s highest award.

Her last book ‘Keeping Chooks, Ducks, Turkeys and Geese?’ was published in 1979, dedicated to “My humble hens that have sent me to many more parts of the world than most are privileged to see.”

References

Anon (1949) “More Eggs for the Housewives,” Special Committee is Appointed, Bay of Plenty Times, Vol 77, Issue 15059, 20 Aug 1949, p20, from Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Anon (1955) Advertisement, Bay of Plenty Year Book, 1955, Astra Publishing
Anon (1962) Beautiful Bounteous Bay of Plenty, Stanton Smith & Co., Wellington, for Tauranga Branch of New Zealand Travel & Holidays Association
Anon (1971) Short History of TEMCO, Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society, No. 43, August 1971, p33-34, courtesy of Pae Koroki https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/23941
Anon (1975) Bay of Plenty Times, 26 Aug 1975
Elizabeth Cox. 'Stewart, Marion Watson', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 2000. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5s46/stewart-marion-watson (accessed 4 December 2021)
Mackersey family reminiscences