Shining example

19 May 2026

New Zealand Tube Mills is known for its Eco Trellis ® and Eco Beam ® brands while its stainless steel UltraBrite tubing is another point of difference – National Sales Manager Steve Pearce explains.

New Zealand Tube Mills, with its prime operation located in Seaview, Petone, employing nearly 50 staff, is an expansive manufacturing entity with two-thirds dedicated to the creation of steel tubing for a myriad of applications and one-third dedicated to stainless steel tubing.

There are also warehouses in Auckland and Melbourne, and another in Christchurch.

Early connection

Sometimes career paths in our industry are a long time in the making, but not always – Steve Pearce, respected National Sales Manager of NZ Tube Mills (NZTM) started his lifetime career in carbon steel at an early age.

As a young lad in Lower Hutt, Steve had been stripping paint on a friend’s uncle’s house when as luck would have it, that same friend’s uncle got him a job interview for a role in Sales at Steel & Tube where he subsequently worked for many years.

After a break working for valving and instrumentation firm Moyes and Groves, Steve returned to the fold, now working for Wellington Steel, which was – in a full circle moment – acquired by Steel & Tube.

Climbing through the ranks Steve Pearce now took on a number of sales management and national roles.

“These included engineering steels manager, business development manager, chain and rigging manager – leading to other management roles at head office level,” says Steve.

Advancing with Amari

From here, an opportunity came to join what was called in those days steel supplier Atlas Steel, which was subsequently acquired by the Amari Metals Group

The next move saw Steve taking on the role he is in today, National Sales Manager for NZTM in Wellington.

NZ Tube Mills – a commercial arm of Amari

Originally, Southward Engineering was the over-arching owner who manufactured the tube (and motor vehicle exhaust systems).

They then created NZTM specifically as the commercial arm – selling the tube mills’ carbon and stainless steel tube.

(Southward Engineering was founded by Sir Len Southward, also noted for creating the world class Southward Car Museum – on Wellington’s Kāpiti Coast.)

NZTM’s’ calm, cool and approachable National Sales Manager has now been in his current role for 14 years plus.

“So, I’d come from working strictly with carbon steel – the dark and not so clean stuff – to now also working with stainless steel,” says Steve. “I remember saying to myself ‘I could never work with stainless steel’, which in those days was a volatile material in the marketplace.”

Stainless becomes stable

However, very soon after Steve joined NZTM, the stainless steel market, in his view, seemed to become somewhat more stable, in terms of pricing, costs etc. “Either that or I got more used to it!” Steve says.

On the steel side of things, one of the company’s largest markets is for their award-winning custom Eco Trellis ® vineyard posts which are highly regarded and in extensive use across New Zealand, Australia, and other parts of the world.

Another major market is for the Eco Beam ® used in the Kiwifruit industry along with various other trellising options for the horticulture industry.

Steel for agriculture, stainless for dairy

In broad strokes, NZTM carbon steel tubing serves the manufacturing, horticulture & agriculture market in New Zealand while the stainless-steel tube output primarily goes to the hygiene-imperative world of the dairy and food industries – along with the architecture and marine industries.

Of course, steel and stainless steel need to be kept apart to avoid contamination of the latter – so the premises has two separate mills.

Both products arrive in coil form from certified overseas mills and locally from NZ Steel. The stainless steel is then cut and TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) welded, while the carbon steel is subjected to electro-resistance welding.

Great things take time

Stainless steel tube manipulation is more time consuming than carbon steel – carbon steel runs at about 10-12 times faster than stainless steel.

So, there are two main reasons stainless steel is more expensive than carbon steel – one is the material content, nickel and other additives required for stainless, and the other is the processing time.

NZTM also operates a state-of-the-art Trumpf tube laser with an 8m bed for improved manufacturing options on carbon and stainless tube as well as bending and cutting process options.

NZTM is slightly different in as much as it carries stainless steel tube stock, whereas most mills will only produce to order.

Working with distributors

“I oversee carbon steel and stainless-steel tube at a national level, working predominantly with distributors, which helps keep things straightforward,” says Steve Pearce.

“By working closely with our distributor network, we can support them effectively so they, in turn, can provide the best service to their customers.”

The company does have some OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), but that’s mainly in the carbon side of the tube.

Precision and longevity

“Our stainless-steel tube is selected predominantly for its precision and its quality – in a global market where cheaper stainless steel options can be found offshore, these are our major points of difference, points not lost on our long-term and return customers.”

While the architectural market is not as strong as it has been due to overseas competition, the dairy industry side of things – particularly in the Waikato district – is building again after a relatively quiet period by the industry’s standards.

There are three stainless-steel grades that NZTM focusses on – the predominantly dairy grade AS1528 320 grit finish, which is the New Zealand dairy standard; second to that, there is the A554, a more general-purpose stainless tube for handrails etc, polished to 320 grit.

Ultrabrite – the Rolls Royce of stainless finishing

And then, thirdly, there is the Ultrabrite, which is the Rolls Royce of stainless steel tubing.

This is essentially a high-end grade architectural stainless steel.

“If you’re going to have a highly polished tube, that’s the one to have,” says Steve. “To give you an example of our quality standards, an imported Ultrabrite tube would have what they call a 600-grit finish, whereas our Ultrabrite tubing, has an 800 plus grit finish.

“Unfortunately, in recent times many customers have opted for selecting cheaper overseas options – but this can backfire in terms of unsightly tea-staining a few years down the track.”

Premium stainless steel tubing on show

One prominent example of NZTM’s Ultrabrite stainless steel tubing is seen on the finishing of Wellington’s luxury Clyde Quay Wharf Apartments – a project that repurposed the former 1960s Overseas Passenger Terminal into a gleaming modern residential and retail space.

“With such a high polish, nothing can cling to this tubing – so it retains its gleaming appearance unaffected by tea-staining, even in a harsh marine environment.”

Attendant to that, NZTM has historically supplied the luxury yacht market with Ultrabrite tubing for railings, particularly in the Brisbane and Sydney areas, for boats, yachts, and speedboats.

Transport meets tubing

More recently, the company has been supplying large diameter Ultrabrite tubing for another form of transport in Australia, with the country’s automotive industry providing a fairly high and constant demand, particularly in the area of big rig trucking.

The attraction there is three-fold: NZTM’s Ultrabrite tubing is workable, for say swaging; there’s the truly spectacular high end finish itself; plus, the chrome type finish is achieved without the need for external chrome plating and related chemicals.

“Fabricators often comment that our tube is consistent and easy to work with – that’s to do with the way we manufacture and polish the material,” Steve says.

Ultrabrite has also been used for the pharmaceutical industry in recent times – again for its gleaming aesthetic and the fact that a dairy grade tube finish was required.

Point of pride

It’s fair to say that Ultrabrite tubing with its chrome-like finish is both a point of difference and also a point of pride for NZTM.

While Steve acknowledges that the stainless steel market has been fairly static in recent times, along with many market sectors in New Zealand, he sees things slightly on the up-tick and predicts further growth towards the middle of the year.

Helping each other out

In terms of the New Zealand Stainless Steel Development Association, Steve finds it particularly valuable from a networking perspective.

“It’s good to meet with others in the industry and to see what they’re up to,” he says. “Bringing stainless steel people together promotes education and basically just lets us help each other out.”