Farmers are missing profit right in front of them that others are capitalising on, he told the Red Meat Sector conference.
“The opportunities you are missing and how to take advantage of those opportunities, I am here to tell you.”
Berger, a co-founder of Elevation Burger, a restaurant chain specialising in grass-fed, certified, organic beef, is passionate about expanding consumer access to grass-fed and organic proteins by partnering farmers.
He led the company’s growth from a single restaurant in 2005 to chain of 45 in the United States and Qatar and one of the largest certified organic beef buying programmes in the US.
The 2015 Organic Trade Association’s Rising Star is focused on developing custom protein supply chains for food service distributors, manufactures and retailers through partnerships with ranchers and farmers.
Berger said while in the US it’s not feasible to have a solely grass-fed system it is trending towards more grass fed, driven largely by consumer demand for free-range proteins.
“There is growing consciousness of the consumer driving this market with huge growth in kids and baby food with non genetically modified organisms and the like.
“NZ is a nation that needs to export. There’s a big market in the US but a lot of your NZ meat is not marketed as grass-fed.
“Both NZ and Australia are big suppliers to McDonalds food chain but NZ is not marketing as grass-fed and so it’s not paying you premiums.
“That’s product raised in NZ to those standards. Those standards in the US spell them out – premium earning.”
Berger said there’s a real challenge with where a lot of NZ product is ending up and how it’s being marketed.
“Grass-fed NZ product is one of the highest-value, quality taste and flavour profile in the world.
“I am in the market all over the world for the best quality so I can tell you this.
“There’s some real bad pasture farmers in the US so we have some very bad US grass-fed beef.
“I can also tell you in the US, NZ is looked at very fondly.
“Your lamb is widely acknowledged in the US and considered some of the highest quality that can be accessed. That cannot be said for many other countries.”
The market success of NZ lamb in the US should serve as the model for NZ grass-fed beef as well.
His message for NZ farmers is consistent with the red meat sector’s Taste Pure Nature campaign that connects identified consumer groups with the unique attributes of grass-fed beef and sheep meat.
“It’s about growing the market, direct partnerships with producers, industry promotion, consumer awareness, government policy and speciality, unique programmes,” Berger said.
