Friday, March 29, 2024

FIELDAYS: It’s time for NZ to be brave

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The consumer trends important for New Zealand agriculture become clear when strolling through the supermarkets of larger British and European cities.
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There are two key criteria of the high-priced, added-value products: fast-paced foods, those ready to eat or quick to prepare, and functional foods, those providing clear health benefits.

It is even more apparent in the colourful and vibrant aisles in wealthier parts of Asia.

Seeing the agricultural and food innovations around the world and reflecting on the pace of change in NZ does bring some concern. 

As a nation we have a habit of picking up themes for a few years, investing millions in pursuing those themes then identifying we are a few years late to the game.

Telling the NZ Story is the perfect current example. 

Our insightful agricultural leaders pick-up these emerging trends through international expeditions and communicate this to our primary industries then our agricultural sectors try to react. But reacting is following and following is done from behind. 

It’s time for NZ to be proactive and lead from the front. It’s time for NZ to be brave.

We need to use our foundation. It’s critical to remember those themes important to us in the past – food quality, food safety, clean and green sustainability, a nice NZ story – are all still very important. But they are a foundation not an innovation. 

We need to catch-up. 

For the added-value target market NZ has identified as a goal we need to provide functional foods that combine quality and taste with nutritional and health benefits. 

Clear labelling of the nutritional content and health benefit is paramount. It is the instant information consumers use to make choices in the sparse seconds dedicated to staring at each food group in the aisle or on the shopping webpage. Most of these functional foods must also be fast-paced, whether smoothies and yoghurts or preprepared meat cuts and meals. 

We need to lead innovation. It’s time to forecast consumer demand based on expected technological, environmental and social trends and begin developing products based on those future needs. 

There are clear candidates for NZ’s new focus – food purchase options that aren’t just sustainable but contribute to improving the environment or society, personalised nutrition based on individual real-time health requirements and, of course, foods that look interesting and exciting on a millennial’s Instagram feed.

We must also remember that forecasts will change, demands will change and our predictions are simply a short-term target that exists to be constantly re-evaluated.

My message to NZ: Let’s build on our obvious platform of agricultural success. Let’s keep pivoting, reinventing and re-innovating. 

Most importantly, let’s be brave and pick up the pace. 

The rest of the world won’t wait for us to catch up and it’s time for NZ to be the world leader of innovation again.

Your View

Jack Keeys, 24, is a business development manager at Farmax, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, on an AGMARDT early career international placement award, hosted by AbacusBio. To share your views in Farmers Weekly write a letter to the editor or provide a contribution to The Pulpit, email farmers.weekly@globalhq.co.nz

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