AsureQuality Limited
AsureQuality Limited (previously AgriQuality Limited) is a State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) fully owned by the government of New Zealand. The company's core business is food quality assurance with its services including certification, inspection, testing, and training. AsureQuality has over 1700 staff at over 100 locations throughout New Zealand. AsureQuality also has a joint venture partner. Bureau Veritas and AsureQuality have two joint ventures, BVAQ Australia and BVAQ SouthEast Asia. Company history. AsureQuality was formed in 2007 from the merger of ASURE New Zealand Limited and AgriQuality Limited. Both companies were originally formed in 1998 from the service  delivery arm of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Quality Management, with ASURE handling meat inspection and AgriQuality specialising in livestock, horticulture and forestry. Following the merger the company employed more than 1700 staff at 140 sites throughout New Zealand and Australia, with its primary laboratory in Gracefield, New Zealand. In 2008 AsureQuality entered a partnership with the Hospitality Standards Institute to provide food safety training for the hospitality sector. In 2010 it opened a wine-certification laboratory in Auckland; in 2013 it expanded its Christchurch food-testing laboratory. In May 2010 it was among a group of SOEs valued  for possible sale by the New Zealand government. In April 2016 the company acquired Australian laboratory-testing provider Dairy Technical Services. In November 2020 the company was fined $66,000 after pleading guilty to two breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act over an incident in which seven workers suffered chemical burns while cleaning a "Mycoplasma bovis"-infected farm in 2018.