The report, produced by B+LNZ and market research agency Kantar Singapore, identifies seven emerging trends shaping the red meat sector, including a growth in alternative models of health and an explosion of personalised health data, emerging technology driving consumer purchasing decisions, a resistance to industrialised food production and a desire for total transparency.
It then outlines seven priorities for the sector to act on to ensure it can successfully respond to the trends and challenges.
The research recommends the sector continue a push towards food products tied to a unique New Zealand culture. This would involve NZ exporting a culture and story around NZ food that elevates the value of ingredients and allows the country to capture more value from branded red meat products.
The study also urges the sector to capture greater value from co-products to drive profitability and hedge against the rise in meat and co-product alternatives.
Firmly establishing the health credentials of beef and lamb to leverage the growing consumer interest in health and wellbeing, and turning NZ’s sustainable red meat story into a unique selling point, are also recommended in the report.
Good says the report provides a lens for what the industry needs to focus on now and for the next five years.
The idea is to use it as a blueprint so that the whole sector understands future trends challenges ahead and a strategy designed to deal with them.
He says although global prices for beef and lamb are at record highs, and the short-medium term prospects for farmers, processors and the wider industry are strong, nothing in the sector stands still.
Workshops have already been held involving the chief executives of meat processing companies covering potential new pathways to market, getting the most value out of co-products, environmental sustainability and health.
Discussions around sustainability have focused on how the industry can tell its story more effectively, while there is also a need to collect solid evidence about the benefits of eating NZ grass fed red meat to be able to lead the health debate.
