Harvesting

Right from the start, the business has involved felling trees.  In the early days, Trevor Benson felled the trees himself for milling into battens with his portable batten mill.  He had a tiny Bristol 25 bulldozer to pull the logs.  Once a post peeler was installed in 1983, the company needed substantially more logs.  So Trevor employed two men who worked full-time harvesting logs.

From this very humble beginning, the company now has three harvesting crews working in the lower North Island area which operate under the name Hautapu Logging.  Hautapu Logging is managed by Chris Benson and is essentially a separate business to the mill. Two of the crews are contracted to other companies and only occasionally provide logs for the mill. The third crew is located in Hautapu Pine's own forest.