Meet the team: Leanne Carlyon

Working with the raw materials from our farms can be demanding. Thankfully our ‘Queen Hay Packer’ takes great pride in her work, undertaking the hard job of packing, mixing and moving hay, seed and grain with unerring precision and efficiency.  

Leanne has now been working at Topflite five years, time predominately spent at our Rosedale site (where she’s close to her husband Brendon, who works on the farm there).

Here she’s responsible for ensuring the huge quantities that come through the site are effectively prepared and processed. It’s hard work, but work that Leanne excels at. Happy, hardworking, and always fun to be around, she’s well-loved and clearly appreciated by everyone here.

Position: Hay Packer   

How long have you worked at Topflite?

I’ve worked here for 5 years now.

What does your daily work involve?

I’m always busy packing hay, packing millets, and keeping track of everything with stock take. I was doing the soft food mixing until that moved to the town site. I also unload and load the trucks with the forklift and am often moving hay and oats around the farm to the required storage areas.

Has the work changed much over the years?

Yes, a lot has changed! We have a hay shredder now. Prior to that we used to have to pull apart the hay bales by hand. Now we have a machine that shreds the hay into manageable pieces before being put into the bagger.

What’s your favourite animal?

I grew up with cats, my parents always had cats and liked to rescue them. Unfortunately, we don't have a cat of our own as we go away too much (and Brendon's parents are allergic!)

Where’s your favourite place in New Zealand?

I love camping at the lakes nearby. We always go to the Waitaki Lakes and mainly go to Otematata Boat Harbour. I've gone there since I was a kid and now our kids love it too. We started out with tents and upgraded to a caravan once the kids came along.

Outside of work what are your interests?

Camping and boating. It’s always nice to be by the lake where the boys can go water skiing, biscuiting and fishing.