28 January 2008
Pork on the up but…
New Zealanders consumed a record 21.4kg of pork per capita last year according to the Board’s recently released Annual
Report for the Year Ending 30 September 2007. This represents an increase of 0.8kg over the previous year. “New
Zealanders appetite for pork, bacon and ham continues to grow, which is good news” says Board Chairman Chris Trengrove.
However New Zealand pork producers have been unable to benefit from this increasing demand. The reason, they are being
squeezed between increasing costs and decreasing returns. “The most pressing issue is increasing feed costs driven by
global demand for grain resulting from biofuel production and difficult climatic conditions, particularly drought in
Australia”.
“Producers are facing dramatic feed price rises this coming season and we’re not yet sure where they’ll end up” says
Trengrove. “This is on top of significant protein input prices and general costs such as wages, fuel and freight rising
at more than 5% per year”.
Trengrove notes in his review that while domestic product continues to dominate the fresh meat sector, imports,
predominantly destined for the process sector have continued to grow reaching 45% in the 2007 year. “There is no doubt
that competition from cheap imports, is affecting producer returns and this has prompted the Board to develop
initiatives that strongly differentiate New Zealand grown pork, bacon and ham”.
Trengrove says that “New Zealanders are waking up to the fact that every week around 800,000kgs of pork is imported into
New Zealand and they definitely want to know that they’re getting 100% New Zealand pork, bacon and ham”. We are in the
process of launching new 100% New Zealand pork, bacon and ham labeling and have had an overwhelmingly positive response
from retailers and consumers. Producers need a lift in price soon and were hoping the increased demand created through
our advertising and promotion will facilitate this.”
Trengrove also devotes time to the industry’s battles on the biosecurity front. “Biosecurity New Zealand (BNZ) has
proposed loosening Import Health Standards on imported pork. Robust consideration of the science tells us that if these
sanitary measures are relaxed that it is almost certain that the New Zealand pork industry will get the PRRS virus.
While there are no human health implications, the consequences from an animal health and welfare perspective are
devastating” says Trengrove.
“If it comes here we’ll see producers go out of business. Both consumers and other industries have supported our stance
and we can only hope that BNZ will see sense, we’ll continue to fight its illogical stance.
The New Zealand pork industry contributes over $1 billion to the economy annually and it would be nice to think we have
our own government supporting us in lifting that contribution” says Trengrove.
ENDS