1952 Aalt Verkek, his wife Jo and two sons Bert (4) and Peter (2) arrive in NZ aboard the Zuiderkruis. He commences working for Victor Alinor in Normans Road and is soon encouraged to produce Dutch sausages and Rosbiefs.

1956 Mr Verkerk rents old premises on the corner of Machester and Armagh Streets, and starts on his own. The building, already 100 years years old, was surrounded by grass when originally built. It was the first city abattoir.

1958 The Armagh Street property is purchased.

1959 Hills Road butchery is purchased to accommodate expansion.

1961 Hills Road is sold to buy land in Vagues Road, Papanui. An 1100 sq ft factory is built on site.

1962 A second room is built at Vagues Road, then a third.

1964 A small farm is added to assist stock management.

1965 A deep freeze completes the Vagues Road factory.

1969 The old Armagh Street shop is demolished and replaced with a modern retail outlet.

1974 Bert Verkerk, the eldest son of Aalt Verkerk, is tragically killed along with contractor Arie van Rooyen in an explosion while doing repairs to the shop.

1985 A 400 tonne capacity coolstore is built at Vagues Road.

1989 The central boning plant is added to the coolstore which eventually employs 45 staff and processes 350 beef, 500 pigs and up to 500 sheep per week

1999 The Armagh Street shop is all but demolished and completely refurbished. Work commences on a dedicated superchiller at Vagues Road for smallgoods - a job previously done by no less than 10 separate chillers.

2003 A brand new state-of-the-art processing factory with cutting edge salami smoking and manufacturing technology,
has recently been completed.

In addition, the company has a retail outlet, farms dedicated to supplying quality meats for the processing operation, and operates slaughter plants in the greater Canterbury region.

With a network of distributors and branches, Verkerks’ products are available from all good supermarkets, food stores and foodservice outlets New Zealand-wide.