New Zealand-Marketing wool and dairy produce.
NEW ZEALAND-
Meat and Wool New Zealand and some meat exporters plan to tackle the high end of the Chinese market, but say Affco, a veteran in the market, has decided not to participate.
The Meat and Wool industry board has joined with three other meat exporters, Alliance Group Ltd, Anzco Foods Ltd and Silver Fern Farms Ltd, to identify opportunities for New Zealand red meat in China’s "super premium" food sector. "China has been a significant market, particularly for lower value sheepmeat items," said Meat and Wool chief executive Scott Champion. "But there has not been a collective approach as to how the high-value Asian market could be developed."
The project could build new market opportunities, based on market research carried out last year by the group.
In the emerging markets of Russia, India, China, and Eastern Europe, China offered the most immediate opportunity, and the new work will match the market potential and the longer term diversification objectives of New Zealand’s red meat industry.
An audit and evaluation is expected by May with a detailed study of the market and several strategies for delivering benefit back to the New Zealand farmers.
The project is partly funded by Trade&Enterprise, with the rest coming from the industry board and the meat exporters.
A spokeswoman said Affco was invited to participate, but chose not to. Affco sank a lot of money into its $20 million meatwoks in Chengdu City in the central Chinese province of Sichuan, in a bid to cash in on rising beef consumption.
But its Wuliangye Affco Golden Ox joint-venture failed when it could not get enough suitable livestock.
The company later said it probably sited the plant too far to the west, and not close enough to the urbanised, wealthy regions of the eastern coast and Beijing.
And shortly before Fonterra embarked in 2005 on what proved to be its Sanlu debacle, then Affco chairman Sam Lewis questioned the whole logic of New Zealand agricultural companies becoming involved in processing in China.
