The arrival was marked by a reception at Zhengzhou attended by New Zealand trade commissioner Liam Corkery, Primary Industries Ministry representatives Dave Samuels and Steve Sutton and an executive of distributor Kangyuan Food Co.
Lewis said the speed of customs clearance for the consignment was a record for meat shipments, taking no more than three hours for the whole process.
Kangyuan had cool and frozen storage facilities and imported more than 10,000 tonnes of meat annually from NZ, Australia and South America to supplement its own domestic processing capacity of 600,000 sheep and 100,000 cattle.
It was also the largest distributor of halal products in China.
Affco had several containers of beef and mutton both on the water and in preparation for shipment to China, as a follow up to the first container.
The company had been working closely with its Chinese partner distributors with the right cool chain storage and distribution facilities to make sure it was ready to take advantage of the chilled trial after its announcement in March by Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy.
Part of the preparation consisted of visits by Chinese butchers to determine the best way to cut the carcase to extract the maximum value from the market.
Affco’s China sales manager Clint Bailey said one of the outcomes from the visits was the recognition more value could be gained from mutton by shipping carcases for cutting in China.
“What we’ve found is that for sheep meat, in particular, chilled western cuts are not the way to go. It’s got to be cut Chinese style to get the most from the carcase.”
To resolve that Affco was shipping chilled mutton carcases whole, which would be cut to specification at their destination, enabling customers to buy on a cut-to-order basis to suit their specific requirements.
Whole carcases were worth almost twice as much to the Chinese as traditional western cuts, which were often underused in the market.
Value had to be assessed through the eyes of the customers and their willingness to pay for it, he said.
Affco had developed a network of customers across China which meant it could carefully select the appropriate channel to capture the highest value for chilled NZ meat going into that market.
The price obtained for mutton, in particular, was now much closer to lamb as a result of the ability to meet customer requirements with the appropriate form of chilled product.
From now on about 20% of frozen product would be shipped in chilled form, which reduced the volume of frozen inventory in the market so it would be possible to maintain a firmer price structure across the board.
