Strong wool eyes China
China looks set to play a key role in helping the New Zealand wool sector shift away from trading as a commodity supplier.
The humble hotpot has been the catalyst for phenomenal growth of the red meat market in China, Silver Fern Farms (SFF) chief executive Dean Hamilton says.
In fact, most of SFF's red meat export growth has been based on the dish in restaurant chains.
During 15 years of exporting to China it had been slow growth. Primarily one or two relatively cheap lamb products went into the hotpot business in a north-eastern region.
But business with China has grown phenomenally in the last five years from $50 million to $330m annually, Hamilton says. A big contributor has been hotpots' rising popularity nationwide via restaurant chains offering everything from relatively cheap dishes to silver service.
Variations on the dish have expanded to include mutton and beef.
Four things have happened during these five years of phenomenal growth, says Hamilton. The lamb business has hugely diversified: two products that
were 85% of the lamb the company sold to China now account for
40%.
They have moved into mutton and beef. The beef business has gone from $3m of sales five years ago to $160m in the 12 months just ended.
"You can see the phenomenal growth we are experiencing, such that we are selling more beef than sheepmeat," he says.
New Zealand First leader and Foreign Minister Winston Peters is ratcheting up pressure on Fonterra farmers as they vote on divesting the co-operative’s consumer and related businesses.
Alliance Group's Pure South Handpicked 55 Day Aged Beef has been recognised on the world stage, securing top honours at the World Steak Challenge in the Netherlands.
Meat co-operative, Alliance has met with a group of farmer shareholders, who oppose the sale of a controlling stake in the co-op to Irish company Dawn Meats.
Rollovers of quad bikes or ATVs towing calf milk trailers have typically prompted a Safety Alert from Safer Farms, the industry-led organisation dedicated to fostering a safer farming culture across New Zealand.
The Government has announced it has invested $8 million in lower methane dairy genetics research.
A group of Kiwi farmers are urging Alliance farmer-shareholders to vote against a deal that would see the red meat co-operative sell approximately $270 million in shares to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
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