Customers of the small Japanese supermarket chain San-Yone have quickly taken to Taupo Beef and Lamb, helping to build brand premiums for conservation reasons.
In a few weeks the New Zealand premium beef captured about half of the supermarket’s beef sales, apparently taking market share from domestic Wagyu.
Lamb sales were not as rapid, given the Japanese unfamiliarity with sheep meat.
Taupo Beef and Lamb principal Mike Barton said the company’s first export shipment went on sale in late January in five high-end supermarkets in the Aichi prefecture west of Tokyo.
The chilled container-load was 75% full set beef and 25% lamb, cut according to Japanese retail requirements.
Two more containers are on their way to Japan and the commitment is for one a month to get the aging and shelf lives right, he said.
Supplied from four farming business around the lake catchment, the animals were killed by Taylor Preston, near Wellington, cold boned and the chilled and vacuum-packed products exported by Neat Meat of Auckland.
Neat Meat also distributes Taupo-sourced products with its Harmony label in North Island supermarkets, meat retailers and restaurants.
Barton said 40% of the beef and lamb output of the Taupo farmers will be exported in future and they won’t be looking for any more overseas markets in the meantime.
“We have already demonstrated that the quality of our meat samples in the middle of winter met the customers’ standards and now we have to commit to the volumes required.
“That would seem like all we can supply on a monthly basis throughout the year.”
The Bartons on Glen Emmreth Farm at Tihoi have been joined by James Trubridge and Sue Yerex at Te Hapua Farm, Turangi, Kelvin and Denise Martin, Kinloch View Farm, and the Waihi Pukawa Trust at Turangi, managed by Colin Gates.
The Bartons spent a week in Japan in February, giving in-store cooking demonstrations, considerably helped by Sharon’s fluency in Japanese gained through tertiary studies here and two periods of residence.
The point-of-sale materials explain the Lake Taupo environmental story, the necessary farming restrictions, the grass-fed, all-seasons outdoor farming story and give profiles of the farmers, including various awards won.
“The Japanese supermarket owner and his heads of department have been keen to understand our farms as closed systems, no need for livestock housing in the winter and all the nutrients in meat coming from the soil and the herbage.
“That was a level of information that I hadn’t thought they would be interested in.
“The owner is very concerned about the health aspects of the foods available in Japan and the unhealthy trends in consumption.
“He wanted grass-fed beef rather than grain-fed, which in Japan has very high saturated fat levels.
“Whereas in European and North American markets they tend to go for audit schemes by non-government organisations, in Japan the Waikato Regional Council environmental tick has been welcomed.
“Consumers don’t necessarily want to know all about the lake and its water quality but they appear to accept the governmental assurance.
“Customers and consumers can read our genuine, verified story and that we are not just flapping our marketing arms,” Barton said.
The Taupo Beef and Lamb brand would continue to evolve.
“We are getting a premium over other NZ beef sold in Japan and that is a way of sharing some of the costs of protecting Lake Taupo.
“It is not all of our costs and foregone farming opportunities but it certainly helps.”
Barton said farmers are going to have to engage consumers on the environmental costs of all meat production.
Not all of those costs can be recouped from the start but the conversation must start so the mechanisms become established.
NZ meat producers cannot rely just on premiums paid in the domestic market.
They have to find a way of doing similar in export sales, in the way San-Yone has embraced.
“We are going to have to supply on contract, when the customer wants it, rather than selling animals when we run out of grass.
“We cannot continue to occupy the commodity space.
“Instead we must establish brand values that pay the costs of environmental, biodiversity and greenhouse gas limits.”
It will take a generation to fully convert the consumers, especially older ones who grew up with cheap meat and no environmental consequences, he believes.
