We are pleased to announce that at the end of this month, a series of acquisitions will take place on the same day. Firstly, a new company jointly owned by Hill Labs and Sam Brooks will acquire the Canterbury-based sister companies ‘Food and Health Standards’ (FHS) and ‘Auditing Solutions’ (AS) from Ian and Gail Shaw. FHS and AS provide Environmental Health Officer services, food safety auditing services, and municipal water sample collection services to a range of customers within and beyond Canterbury. Secondly, the water operations within FHS, led by Lisa Shaw, will be carved out and moved into Hill Labs, while maintaining a close relationship with FHS.

This, our first Hill News for 2025, has a couple of headline articles that I want to highlight. The first relates to a series of acquisitions that will be completed essentially simultaneously at the end of this month. There is some complexity in the deals that we are doing, but essentially there will be two main outcomes – increased capability within Hill Labs, and a partnership we will be entering into via a separate company.

The New Zealand Soil Science Society conference was held in Rotorua in December 2024 and Erin McIlmurray, our Market Sector Manager - Agriculture, attended for the first time. She took away some new learnings and discovered some valuable insights.