Outlook for dairy strong – ag trade envoy
New Zealand’s special agricultural trade envoy Hamish Marr believes the outlook for the dairy sector remains strong.
"I looked at your industry and thought, 'where is something where I can take real New Zealand, add brand, add value and take it offshore?'
"So I bought an ice cream company. The problem with the ice cream company I had is that it didn't have a brand. It was Chateau ice cream.
"I knew if I really wanted to grow and be global I had to have a brand. I found what I thought was -- and I think still is -- the best brand in the world: New Zealand Natural.
"It was owned by South Africans operating out of Sydney. I went over there and spent a long time – it was like a seduction. I took them out to dinners and lunches, I got the families and started talking to them and eventually I got them to sell me the brand New Zealand Natural.
"So I had my plan, I had a manufacturing business and I had a brand. Marry them together... and with a lot of hard work.... There were good days and there were those nights you talked about when you woke up at 2 oclock in the morning and thought 'holy crap, it isn't working, we failed here....'
"In the end we grew a business that was nothing 10 years ago to a business for which I got tapped on the shoulder by a Chinese who said, 'I want to buy the business', and I said 'it's not for sale'.
"He said 'I think it is'. He is one of the wealthiest men in China."
He took her out to lunch and by the end of the lunch he had bought her business.
"He didn't buy the fact that New Zealand Natural made the best ice cream; he bought the NZ brand. That meant so much to him – to take a NZ branded product to China and Asia."
When she sold it in June last year they had about 1000 outlets, they had their own franchises and made it for supermarkets. They were in 35 countries.
"He said to me 'I'm not interested in your 35 countries; I want it in China'. We had 60 stores in China; his plan was to have 4500 by the end of next year.
"That gives you some idea of the growth and the scope of a brand from NZ. He believes so much in the New Zealand Natural brand. He has maintained my entire management team."
This made her very proud, because they were assessed and appraised from a Chinese perspective and he hasn't changed a single person.
"What he does have which I didn't have is hundreds of millions of dollars to grow New Zealand Natural in China.
"That gives you some idea of what you can do with a dairy brand.
"You guys are at the coalface of the dairy brand. I think the biggest problem in NZ at the moment is we send globally millions of litres of white gold but we don't step back and do what we did at New Zealand Natural which was to add brand and magic: our magic was we made good ice cream.
"My challenge to everybody is, when you're working hard on the farm think about how you can grow a brand, or get together as a group and become a brand.
"You could ask why the established companies aren't doing that." For two reasons, Foreman says.
"Do you know there is world research that shows that businesses with at least one woman on the board earn more money than businesses that don't. There's research that shows if you have 50/50 gender representation on your board you can storm the world.
"I think there's probably a lack of good female thinking. Because females think differently from men we are missing many many opportunities."
She says she is not a feminist although someone recently called her an entrepreneurial feminist and she thought that might fit.
"All I know is that if I want to see New Zealand grow, I think it's dairying we will grow from," Foreman says.
