Daniel Pereira contributing to Open Country’s decarbonisation journey
Daniel Pereira has come on board at Open Country to help the company to become more efficient, with decarbonisation and processing improvements being a core focus. It is a role that is quite simply a perfect fit for someone who wants to make a difference.
Joining around 18-months ago as an Energy Graduate, Daniel came on board as part of the EECA graduate programme. He hit the ground running and hasn’t looked back, being promoted to the new position of Energy Projects Engineer in July 2022.
Originally from the Waikato, Daniel completed a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours, in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waikato. A graduate programme was always in his sight but he didn’t know about the opportunities at Open Country. What he did know was that he wanted to work on environmentally sustainable projects of significance. This is exactly the role he found.
Graduate opportunities in the energy sector are competitive. For Daniel, he was placed in the top 10 for his video interview and then shortlisted to four candidates for in-person meetings. Daniel was offered the job on Christmas Eve in 2020 and started soon after.
What appealed to Daniel about the role was seeing where it was on its decarbonisation journey, which is hugely important to its business and role in the dairy industry. He was especially interested to learn the company had the largest electrode boiler in the Southern Hemisphere, located at their Awarua site. The boiler uses renewable electricity to generate steam supply for Awarua’s milk dryers.