A building once part of Waikato ’s bustling milk processing network now tells its own historic story. The former dairy factory at Manawarū, between Te Aroha and Matamata , became Community View – including a heritage centre – in 2020. In the middle of the rural township, the original Manawarū Co-operative Butter Factory was built in 1902 and was one of the earliest Waikato co-ops.
The original building burnt down in 1929 but was rebuilt by the former New Zealand Co-Operative Dairy Company in a remarkable six months and at the time was the largest cheese processing site in the southern hemisphere. It later changed to cream and casein production but closed for good in 1981 and sat mostly idle for the next 40 years..