One of Papua New Guinea’s more colourful enterprises, Mainland Holdings, operates the world’s largest saltwater crocodile farm. But, as Business Advantage discovered on a recent visit to its Lae base, that is just one business unit in a rapidly-increasing portfolio.

The Mainland saltwater crocodile farm is the world’s largest

Looking at Mainland Holdings today, it’s hard to believe that this company began as a coffee mill owned by villagers from Morobe and Oro Provinces. These days, the company has seven diversified yet complementary divisions, employs over 2000 staff and had a group turnover of over K330 million (US$113 million) in 2007.

What hasn’t changed is the ownership by shareholders from rural villages and the Group’s commitment to working with these rural communities.

Mainland Holdings was born in 1971 with the purchase of the Lae Coffee Mill. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the dividends from the company were re-invested in complementary businesses, resulting in the diversified but synergized company structure seen today.

In 2004, international firm Booker Tate was appointed as corporate managers of the company and, in 2006, a coffee division was re-established to strengthen traditional ties to shareholders. In 2006, the opportunity to acquire Niugini Coffee Tea and Spice arose and now Mainland’s Coffee division is the third-largest PNG coffee exporter. By providing support for shareholders to purchase and deliver coffee for sale to Mainland, the company supports the local communities while creating a huge opportunity for expansion.

Mainland Coffee is also working with industry body the Coffee Industry Corporation to help improve small farmers’ incomes through training programs and ‘Fair Trade’ schemes.

To complement the Coffee Division, another subsidiary, Moale Trading, operates retail stores at both 5 Mile and 40 Mile, supplying trading goods to the agriculture-based communities.

Aside from coffee, Mainland has six other divisions, the largest of which is Tablebirds, which produces ‘3 Roses’ flour at its own mill close to Lae and also supplies over 65% of PNG’s fresh and frozen chicken market. It sells specially-formulated chicken feed and day-old chicks for rearing in the local communities, many of which are subsequently re-sold to Tablebirds when grown. Small farmer broiler chicken production represents over 40% of Tablebirds’ total frozen meat production.

The Mainland Crocodile Farm is the world’s largest saltwater crocodile farm with over 40,000 crocodiles. While renowned for exporting the highest quality skins to top fashion designers and supplying crocodile meat to PNG supermarkets, Mainland Crocodile Farm is also actively involved in the Sepik Conservation Program and injects more than K100,000 into this program each year.

Mainland also owns ABCO Transport, which handles the transport and logistics of the group and commercial customers, as well as a controlling stake in Territory Packaging. Meanwhile, Huon Electrical is a wholly-owned division. These businesses provide further synergies for the group, through their respective packaging and equipment servicing activities. Territory Packaging also exports regionally.

With a corporate culture based on a triple bottom line of people, profit and excellence and with a focus on engaging with rural communities, this 100% PNG-owned business has set a course for continued success and expansion.