Regardless of his success, throughout his life Pye said he gained his greatest joy from day-to-day farming. Of his wealth, he once commented: “They got the noughts in the wrong place.”

Known both in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia as the Spud King, Pye grew up on his parents’ Charles (Chub) and Frances’ small farm on Factory Rd near Temuka, with his sisters Marion (deceased), Noeline and Helen.

He attended Temuka Primary School, followed by a year at the now defunct Timaru Technical College.

While at school, Pye started picking potatoes for two local farmers and instead of wages, one of them offered him seed potatoes. Aged 14, he left school and leased some land from his father, starting a lifelong passion for growing potatoes.

Pye soon started hay baling, contracting and transport businesses, and visited the United States looking for ideas, returning with plans for centre-pivot irrigation, a first for the country.

The Pye family says probably Allan Pye’s biggest business success was the formation of Dairy Holdings in 2000.
DIANA LESLIE / STUFF

In 1961 he purchased his first block of land, near Clandeboye at the mouth of the Orari River, and then a few years later a small block at Farm Rd, which was still owned by Diana Pye and farmed by his sons’ business Pye Group today.

The home block at Rise Rd, opposite where he had a yard for his contracting business, was purchased in the early 1970s and was now the main yard and home block for the family company, Pye Group.

From there, Pye purchased more land including at one time Kaiwarua Station in Waimate.

In 1981 he was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship and toured England and Europe, purchasing a dairy farm while there.

“Allan was always looking at ways to improve both on-farm practices and post-farm gate returns,” the family said in a statement.

“Allan was a supplier of potatoes, carrots and peas to Watties in Timaru, and when they decided to amalgamate operations in Christchurch, Allan worked with local farmers and businessmen including Doug Haigh, Allan Turley and Allan Hubbard to help establish Alpine Foods, which is now the McCain factory at Washdyke.“

The relationship with McCain led Pye to buy land in South Australia in 1990. With his son Mark, they increased landholdings there, and became one of Australia’s biggest potato, carrot and onion growers.

In 1996, Pye headed the purchase of Tasmania’s largest farm, Rushy Lagoon Farm for AU$8 million. One of the partner buyers was Timaru financier Allan Hubbard of South Canterbury Finance.

In the 1990s traditional South Island sheep, beef and arable farms were being extensively converted into dairy farms. Pye turned his attention to this sector.

The formation of Dairy Holdings was possibly Allan Pye’s biggest success.
STUFF

“Perhaps Allan’s biggest business success was the formation of Dairy Holdings in 2000,” the family statement said.

“It started with a conversation with Allan Hubbard at a family wedding, and soon after Allan Pye set out to purchase about 30 dairy farms previously owned by Tasman Agriculture and Dairy Brands.”

Both Pye and Hubbard became large shareholders in Dairy Holdings which grew to become New Zealand’s largest corporate dairy farmer, and owner of more than 70 dairy farms.

In 2010 South Canterbury Finance, then the country’s largest locally-owned finance company, collapsed amid claims of fraud.

Pye was not implicated, nor his reputation affected. In the fallout, he bought Hubbard’s share of Rushy Lagoon Farm, and expanded the farm to 22,000ha, with 4000 cows, 8000 beef cattle and 7000 sheep. In 2018 he placed the farm on the market for AU$70m, then withdrew it.

In 2019 Timaru businessman Allan Booth, left, and Pye bought the former Sea Breeze Motel on Timaru’s Bay Hill after earlier acquiring the Hydro Grand Hotel nearby.
BEJON HASWELL/ STUFF / STUFF

In 2014 he sold his Dairy Holdings share for a substantial amount believed to be about $100m. Today, fellow Temuka potato and arable growers, Murray and Margaret Turley have a one-third share in the company.

Under Pye Group, Pye’s son Mark and daughter-in-law Michelle took over New Zealand operations growing potatoes, carrots and operating dairy farms across the South Island.

Other business ventures in which Pye was involved included importing alpacas from South America, and trucks from England, an Australian potato crisp business, Chippies Potatoes, shareholdings in St Andrews Transport, Highfield Transport, and Bayhill Developments, owners of the former Hydro Grand Hotel site in Timaru.

“He was also a strong supporter of irrigation schemes in Canterbury,” the family said.

“He invested funds in Rangitata South Irrigation and at a crucial time purchased excess shares in Central Plains Water ensuring the scheme could go ahead.”

Pye first began appearing on the National Business Review (NBR) Rich List in the late 1990s. He downplayed claims about his wealth.

“It said in one of their articles that half of it is gossip and talk about town, there’s a little bit of fact, and they do a little bit of digging.”

Allan Pye’s purchase of excess shares in the Central Plains Water scheme ensured it could go ahead.
DEAN KOZANIC / THE PRESS

By 2016, the NBR estimate of his wealth had grown to $350m. Later he said his personal net worth was $300m. The total family wealth had been estimated to be in the region of $1 billion.

Murray Turley said Pye was innovative and forward thinking, and drove hard the plan to develop Alpine Foods for the benefit of Mid and South Canterbury.

“We’ve been family friends and business colleagues,” he said.

Pye’s family said one thing that stood out during throughout his farming career was collaboration with others.

“Whether it be the seed business, the South Island Barley Society he was instrumental in establishing, Alpine Foods, Rushy Lagoon, Dairy Holdings or his current farming partnerships with both his family and other shareholders, Allan was often the visionary who surrounded himself with others that could help make those visions a reality.

“The most notable being his former wife Diana.”

Allan Pye died in Burwood Hospital, Christchurch, on Saturday, aged 83. His funeral would be held at Pye Group’s home block at Rise Rd in Winchester on Friday. Pye was survived by his five children, Mark, Leanne, Leighton, Dean and Bernice, 15 grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

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