“We are finding that because of the supply issue we are moving into selling higher value cuts now, such as shoulders and the like,” says market development manager Craig Finch.
“There is opportunity for beef as well because of our FTA: we have a strong comparative advantage.”
But despite the FTA a lot of product still goes to China through ‘grey channels’, namely Hong Kong, though there is “more momentum” in the market now, he notes.
Finch says the price of lamb flaps has trebled over the last couple of seasons and demand is still strong.
Asia’s been the focus for substantial BLNZ-funded market research aimed at understanding what consumers buy and their attitudes to food in general. The aim is to be able to target marketing at specific demographic groups they wouldn’t otherwise know about, Finch says.
“It’s important that we get a lot of data in the retail food service area. We want to know consumers’ habits in respect of impulse buying and what makes them buy lamb ahead of other products.” Better information will allow exporting companies and BLNZ to devise better ways to influence consumers at the point of purchase.
Finch says the expanding middle class contains more young people looking to high value lamb cuts.
“You’ve got aspects of generations these days who are quite mobile, and more exposed to the world and food and the options on offer. However, I don’t think this will happen overnight. The lamb flaps go into hot pot and I don’t think that is going to change.”
Elsewhere in Asia there is still a focus on key established markets for beef and to a lesser degree lamb, Finch says. Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are important markets for a variety of cuts, partly because of animal health problems in other countries, he notes. “From New Zealand’s perspective, food safety is a key issue.”
Important emerging markets for New Zealand include Indonesia, Thailand , India and the Philippines.
“The interesting thing about those markets is [their] strong population [and] economic growth. All are very different and have their own features and characteristics. But overall where you’ve got population growth and rising incomes, then demand is going to increase.”
Given our closeness to Asia, New Zealand is well placed to meet that demand, he says.
