Iran comes back for more

Its chief executive, Simon Gatenby, visited the capital Tehran recently, and met with the buyer, who placed another order.

The buyer had profitably sold all the product in the trial shipment and so is in the market for another shipment, likely late November or early December.

“It’s just a matter of waiting until the livestock price settles down to a level that doesn’t have the winter premiums in it and makes it sustainable for him,” Gatenby told Rural News. “At that time, the quality and price will be right.”

He says the order will be about four container loads (100 tonnes). Some tweaking of the specification may be needed to meet the needs of the Iranian importer.

When the Iranian buyer visited New Zealand earlier this year seeing the trial shipment being prepared, he said NZ lamb was of good quality, that he was impressed by our food safety and quality control and that he found NZers good people to deal with.

Gatenby says he sees a prospect of selling chilled lamb to Iran. But this depends on MPI and Iranian officials working out certain technical issues and he’s hopeful this can be resolved. The past and present shipments are going mainly into the food service sector, restaurants and small catering businesses.

“It’s not setting the world on fire, but is going along nicely. I don’t know what the other NZ meat companies are thinking, but we are happy for it to develop at its own pace,” Gatenby adds. “We are not necessarily going to push hard but having done one shipment we’d like to do more.”

Anuga brings new sales

Gatenby represented Taylor Preston at the huge food and beverage fair Anuga in Cologne, Germany.

This five day event attracts 160,000 international visitors and 7400 exhibitors, including Taylor Preston and two other NZ meat companies – Alliance and Affco.

Gatenby says it was a very positive show with buyers from China, USA, Eastern Europe and Russia.

He says while people were keen to buy lamb, they were concerned about its high price and what might happen if the price dropped.

“We told them the only thing that would push prices down would be more lamb coming on the market,” Gatenby told Rural News.

“We don’t see that happening because NZ doesn’t have any more lamb than it had last year and we are not aware of any other countries with extra lamb to sell.”

Gatenby says since returning from Anuga he has been following up inquiries and buyers have been contacting the company.

“Its early days, but there is a lot of correspondence flying back and forth.”