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B+LNZ IS “frustrated” that meat companies are not meeting it dollar-for-dollar in promotional work; but given the industry fragmentation foreseen if B+LNZ pulled out, promotion may fall through the cracks, says B+LNZ director James Parsons.
B+LNZ has moved away from generic promotion to joint promotion with companies. They aimed to progressively bring this up to a 50% contribution from the meat companies, but had only got up to 30%.
“That has been a real frustration for us, and to be honest, as an organisation, as a board, we are continuing looking at this: is that the space for Beef+Lamb to be in or should we just leave it up to the meat companies?”
Parsons says he believes promotional work is really important, and if B+LNZ pulled out, a lot of companies would not step into the breach. “That’s their fear of free-rider behaviour. You’ve got a fragmented industry, so you’ve always got one or two players who will say they are not actually in there.” It was difficult to get around this.
In answer to farmer concerns about returns to farmers, Parsons says all the figures showed there had been gains but “it is a matter of how much was being captured back at the farmgate”. He spent five months on a Nuffield Scholarship looking at
the question and concluded “of all the productivity gains made, we hadn’t banked them, we had traded them
away”.
“That’s why there is definitely a need for a better structure in the meat industry in the way we transact business.”
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