A Bay of Plenty farmer has moved onwards and upwards in a new role in a different location since enjoying rich success at last year’s New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards.

Thomas Lundman won the 2025 Bay of Plenty Dairy Manager of the Year title and went on to place second in the same category at the national final.

Going into the awards programme last year, he was managing a 135ha Whakatāne farm, milking 530 cows.

On June 1, 2025 however, the 28-year-old took on a contract milking position with 1100 cows and a 44-a-side herringbone shed on a 290ha dairy farm near Kawerau.

With his wife Alice Lundman, a personal assistant at Apex Home Loans in Whakatāne, Thomas Lundman employs five fulltime staff.

His ambition has always been to move up the dairy industry ladder, with a sharemilking position now in the five-year plan, followed by farm ownership.

“We’re on our way up.”

Lundman said he was actually “shoulder-tapped” for the Kawerau contract-milking job at a pasture summit two years ago.

However, he wanted to first gain experience as a farm manager on a smaller-scale property.

Originally from Southland, his parents were contract milkers before moving to Te Anau when Lundman was 12.

He attended Fiordland College before working as a tour guide and later team leader for five years at the Te Anau Glowworm Caves.

“I went from herding tourists to herding cows.”

Career change

After Covid struck, with its devastating effect on tourism, Lundman looked at joining the police force in 2020.

However, a “halfway job” working on a dairy farm in Bay of Plenty turned into a fulltime career.

This also brought them closer to his wife’s family near Whakatāne.

Lundman was the first recipient of the Farm-Starter Kit, a national initiative by Federated Farmers and the Ministry of Social Development to help people made jobless by Covid-19 disruption to get into work in agriculture.

After less than six months’ farming, he heard about the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards at a Pie Day Friday event hosted by Farm Source.

An entrants’ evening seemed particularly attractive as it offered free beer and pizza at a local brewery.

Lundman has competed in the awards four times, twice each as a dairy trainee and dairy manager, making the nationals on two occasions.

This year, he is part of the Bay of Plenty organising committee but plans to have a crack at the shar farmer title in 2027.

He is working on his Primary ITO Dairy Apprenticeship (level 4) and then hopes to complete a Diploma in Agri-Business Management.

Lundman said the Dairy Industry Awards “fast-tracked” his career.

“It is the number one way to get opportunities to progress in the sector.

“Your get your name out there, even as an entrant.”

Lundman said most farm jobs are still filled by word-of-mouth.

“The Dairy Industry Awards provides you with an excellent network of connections.”

Networking opportunities

“I found that networking with people all over the country and making connections for advice to be super beneficial,” Lundman said.

“Winning categories has opened doors for me that I never would have imagined and has given me the confidence that I’m good enough to take the next step.”

“I chose farming as it was a stable job in a not-so-stable time and has a clear path of progression.”

Lundman looked forward to New Zealand leading the way in environmental standards and also in the wearables technology sector.

“I’m most excited about the future that farming could provide for me and my family.

“If I can knuckle down, work hard, then I’ll achieve my goals.”

He said the step up in scale with the contract milking position did not start without its challenges last year.

“It was the toughest six months [from June 1] of my life.”

Calving at Kawerau started on June 15, compared to mid-July on the Whakatāne property he previously managed.

Illness and staff issues added to the difficult start.

But Lundman said the learning and education he received in that first six months has proved priceless.

He said the situation has “come right” in the new year.

Farm records have been tidied up and he now does not have to focus on “fighting fires” in other aspects of the operation.

“I can start being proactive rather than reactive.”

Lundman said he and his wife have always had a “family-first” approach and maintain a healthy work/life balance with 1-year-old son Asher Lundman.

Alice Lundman’s family also live less than 10 minutes away from them.

“It’s not worth having the best business in the world if it comes at the expense of doing the things that you enjoy,” Thomas Lundman said.