One of Southland’s favourite family-owned businesses is expanding further with two new trucks.

The only issue now is finding people to drive them.

Kiwiskips managing director Dan Butterfield, who runs the company with wife Kereana, has added two shiny new six-tonne trucks to the Invercargill-based fleet this month as the company continues to expand its share of the Southland waste collection market.

“We are definitely putting in the hard yards, and we are planning to expand further,” Dan said.

Since Kiwiskips started in 2017, with one truck, it has grown rapidly, now numbering 14 trucks and 14 team members.

The company’s success was built on great service and some consolidation among local waste collection businesses that had seen a lot of new customers come their way, Dan said.

“Southlanders have embraced Kiwiskips and trust us to do the right thing with their waste as much as we can.”

It remained a very competitive market and Kiwiskips would continue to work hard to cement its place, he said.

One of the biggest issue facing them was having enough drivers.

“We’ve got eight truck divers, nine including myself. We’re really trying to encourage more people into our industry.”

They have a strong emphasis on waste reduction and work hard to find markets for seperated waste such as textiles.

“We still haven’t found a home for textiles. We’ve been knocking on doors, because we get tonnes of clothes every day.”

Kiwiskips plan to set up several different bunkers for wood, concrete, metal, and window glass. They have one team member whose full-time role is seperating waste.

“We’re big believers in reduce and reuse. If you can avoid buying something, or find new uses for materials, that’s great.”

Kiwiskips were working with Naylor Love at the Te Unua Museum of Southland building site and the waste minismisation efforts were inspiring, Dan said.

“They’re the best to work with on this, because their approach to waste managment is so good. They’re so efficient.”

Seperation of waste on site was encouraging reuse of materials where possible, he said.

“We’ve got more and more people talking about waste diversion. Everyone wants to do better.”

The KiwiEnviro brand, set up in 2024, was also going really well, Dan said.

“My main driver was to give Southlanders another option down here for liquid waste and hydro excavating,” he said.