The present day Hopkins Farming Group Limited (HFGL) is the culmination of decades of dairy farming expansion and development. John and Elaine Hopkins began with sharemilking in the 1960’s after John emigrated to New Zealand in 1957 from the UK (on board the Captain Hobson). They progressed to farm ownership near Shannon before expanding into the Opiki in the 1980’s.
Strautmann Hopkins Ltd was founded in 1983 importing agricultural machinery from the Strautmann factory in Bad Laer, Germany. Machines were imported for use throughout the group and to sell and service this equipment throughout New Zealand.
In 1988 the first equity investors joined the Hopkins family through a number of separate farm partnerships creating larger and more efficient dairy farms. This was the start of the Hopkins Farming Group.
As the number of farms increased and expanded in scale, the partnerships evolved into farming companies with equity partners the shareholders. They have proved successful and the number of shareholders has progressively increased.
The business was then restructured to form a single company in order to:
provide for governance, succession and to access operational and overhead synergies.