J.Swap has made huge investments in bulk storage capacity in strategic distribution points covering the entire North Island, and for a while now has been committing resources to South Island locations.

The huge investment in storage capacity was made to support the latest business interest for the Swap family, transporting palm kernel (PKM), wheat, soya and copra meal, in partnership with Hunter Grain. The commodity game is all about price, and he who can ship and store in the greatest quantity, usually wins the price war.

The huge growth in palm kernel used by dairy farmers has vindicated Swap’s potentially risky move into the stockfeed game, but it made sense for a company geared up to shift bulk product, especially since the palm kernel peak comes during Swap’s traditionally quiet period.

Moving into stockfeed has been relatively seamless for the Swaps, who have a long history of working with farmers. David Swap is surprisingly passionate about farming for a contractor – the family collectively owns a reasonable chunk of farmland - and spares no expense on his purebred Herefords. He runs 200 breeding cows and sells steers at about 20 months.

“I’ve always been interested in farming,” he says. “We go onto a lot of farms in our line of work, and have made some very good friends in farming. It’s part of our way of life and the stockfeed business is something I understand.”

Swap likes excellence to be rewarded – which is partly why he won’t discount his contracting services: “If a farmer says he can hire a cheaper contractor, I say ‘hire him then’. They might seem cheaper but they will also likely be less efficient, less skilled and end up costing more in the long-run.”

He believes the dairy industry’s success is well deserved and says the service industry is contributing to that success by setting itself the same high standards. His company is committed to bringing the cost effective palm kernel to the South Island dairy industry and this commitment is already being rewarded through supply contracts with large-scale farmers like Casey Zeestraten.



“The dairy industry is doing well, and we want them to do well. I love to see people succeed; it’s important to me to see a happy family successfully working together.”

His own family has prospered on this philosophy. J Swap Contractors is a family-owned company, deeply involved in its Matamata community. The directors are David and Lewis Swap, sons of company founder Joe Swap. Their families also work in the business. David’s sons are Stephen (Transport Manager), Cameron (ISO/QA Manager) and Morgan, who is part of the supplementary feed operation.

Lewis runs the quarries and the workshop. His sons are Andrew, the Transport Maintenance Manager, and Michael, who is a contracting project manager, while his son-in-law Simon Carter is the Quarry Repairs Workshop Manager.

Of all the components of J Swap’s latest farm initiative – supplementary feed - PKM has been the most popular since it was introduced into New Zealand in 1999. Copra and soya bean meal are more specialist supplements. These imports have increased exponentially each year – from 35,000 tonnes in 2003 to 90,000 tonnes in 2004 to over 200,000 tonnes in 2005 – as the farming fraternity has accepted these feeds.

This acceptance has been helped by overseas practice, and research in New Zealand. Massey University’s dairy units are customers for Swap supplementary feeds.

Swaps and Hunter Grain have developed a direct-to-farmers approach, with no middlemen clipping the ticket.

Supplementary feeds supply essential nutrients that animals cannot take from pasture at certain times of the year.

Protein is one essential nutrient – for muscle growth, repair and synthesis of body tissues and for reproduction. However protein supply is hit when pasture matures after November each year. At this time energy levels and digestibility are also low, while fibre levels are high, leading to heat stress and loss of appetite – and cows then use up the condition put on over previous months as a protein and energy source.

Pasture protein can fall to 13% in summer – cows need 17% at this time. Feeding PKM is one option to maintain cow condition under such circumstances. It can be mixed with other products such as maize or grass silage or fed straight from trailers or other portable containers. Because of its dry nature cows do not tend to gorge themselves on PKM, ensuring that every cow in the herd will be fed.

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