Friday, March 29, 2024

NZ meat industry pioneer honored

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New Zealand meat industry pioneer Sir Graeme Harrison has won this year’s Rabobank Leadership Award in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to the food, beverage and agribusiness sectors.
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Harrison, the founder and chairman of one of NZ’s largest exporters, Anzco Foods, was presented with the trans-Tasman award at the annual Rabobank Leadership Dinner in Sydney, Australia, last night.

It is the second year in a row a New Zealander has taken the honour with former Fonterra chair Sir Henry van der Heyden the recipient of the award last year.

Presenting the award, Rabobank Australia & New Zealand Group managing director Peter Knoblanche said Sir Graeme was a “true champion of agribusiness” who had made an enormous contribution not only as a NZ business leader, but also in the international meat industry trade”.

“As founder of Anzco Foods, Graeme Harrison has accomplished the extraordinary achievement of building a business from nothing to one that today has an annual turnover of NZ$1.5 billion and which employs more than 3000 people across NZ and eight overseas locations and which markets into more than 80 countries,” Knoblanche said.

“And what makes this even more outstanding is that he has achieved this in an environment and over a time that has been notoriously challenging for the meat sector in NZ, with Anzco formed in the wake of the deregulation of the NZ economy and agricultural sector.

“This saw the virtual overnight removal of subsidies to sheep farmers – a move that led to the NZ sheep flock declining to less than 50% of what it was in 1984.

“To have established and grown a meat processing and marketing business over this time, as well as expanding into Asian markets outside the traditional focus for NZ sheep and beef export markets into the UK and US, is nothing short of exceptional.

“Graeme has been inspirational in providing strong leadership over a long period.

“He has not only formed a company that has performed consistently in both returns and market behaviour, but he has contributed to the industry good throughout his lifetime’s work, including recently personally funding a professorial chair at Lincoln University in global food value chains and international trade.”

Hailing from a mid-Canterbury farming family, Harrison has worked in a number of roles associated with the NZ meat industry since 1973.

As a deputy chief executive of the NZ Meat Producers Board, in 1984, he founded Anzco as a sheep meat marketing company for the board in Japan.

Overseeing the successful growth of the company as it expanded into beef and opened the NZ sheep and beef industry’s door into the Asian market, Sir Graeme was managing director of Anzco for 20 years before becoming chairman in 2004.

“NZ’s competitive advantage lies with the land, and the agrifoods sector accounts for over 70% of the country’s merchandise trade.

Sir Graeme Harrison

Anzco

In 1995, he led a management buyout of Anzco and in 2001, the company settled on its current shareholding, comprising Japanese food companies Itoham Foods and Nippon Suisan, as well as directors and management.

Today the multi-national integrated beef and lamb producer and marketer is NZ’s fifth largest exporter and operates farms, sheep meat and beef processing plants, the country’s largest cattle feedlot, food manufacturing plants, retail outlets and an innovation centre in NZ and has market representation in countries including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, North America, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Australia.

Knoblanche said that, in addition to his current role as chairman of Anzco, Sir Graeme’s commitment to developing export opportunities for NZ agribusiness included his roles as chairman of the NZ International Business Forum and a director of one of the southern hemisphere’s largest seafood companies, Sealord.

Harrison has also been a member of the NZ China Council and was formerly an independent director of Westland Milk Products.

Despite having spent a significant portion of his career based overseas, including in Japan and the United Kingdom, he has served on leading industry organisations including the Council of the Meat Industry Association and as a director of Meat & Wool NZ, the NZ Meat Board and the consortium NZ Lamb Company in North America.

In July 2011, Sir Graeme was awarded a knighthood for his services to, and achievements in business. He was named Federated Farmers Agribusiness Person of the Year in 2010.

Accepting his award, Harrison said the agribusiness sector made an enormous contribution to NZ’s economic wellbeing.

“NZ’s competitive advantage lies with the land, and the agrifoods sector accounts for over 70% of the country’s merchandise trade.

“If you work it back to GDP, effectively one in four dollars is generated from the land-based sector in one form or other.”

He credits trust as being at the centre of good leadership.

“The most important thing in leadership is seeing opportunity then surrounding yourself with the people who can execute those opportunities – so they’ve got to buy into it,” he said.

“The key thing is to have a group of people – those you work with, shareholders, service providers and customers – who trust you. And be prepared to step up and become a future leader.”

The peer-nominated and judged Rabobank Leadership Award is presented annually to individuals who create sustainable growth and prosperity at both a corporate and industry level in the food and agribusiness industries, while demonstrating wider commitment to society.

Recipient of this year’s Rabobank Emerging Leader – an award category introduced in 2013 recognising up-and-coming young leaders in agriculture – was the founder and chief executive of herb grower and distributor Australian Fresh Leaf Herbs, Jan Vydra.

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