Friday, March 29, 2024

Meat industry veteran bows out

Neal Wallace
Lyn Jaffray has seen the best and the worst of times in farming during more than 50 years working in the meat and livestock industries. The China market manager for Silver Fern Farms spoke to Neal Wallace as he prepares for retirement. 
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Lyn Jaffray well remembers the point when his job selling New Zealand export meat changed.

It was 1997 and low production due to a tough winter had forced China to scour the globe looking for alternative sources of lamb flaps.

They approached NZ and Jaffray, sales manager for PPCS at the time, was on the next flight to China.

Unbeknown to him, it started a 23-year relationship with the China market.

He came away from what was the first of an estimated 60 visits he has made to China with three lasting impressions.

The first was that China was developing a growing taste and demand for protein; that Chinese want to be treated with respect by those wanting to do business with them;  and it takes time to cement relationships with them. 

Until the entry of China on the global protein market, salesmen like Jaffray were largely quibbling over a few cents a pound to secure sales.

China’s arrival was a game changer due to its appetite for meat and the prices it was prepared to pay.

Jaffray is retiring after 48 years working for Silver Fern Farms (SFF), previously known as PPCS, and an additional five years as a livestock drafter with Reid Farmers Ltd working in Otago.

“I started working when I was very young without a curriculum vitae straight out of school,” he said.

One thing he was good at was rugby, playing 23 matches, including seven tests, for the All Blacks between 1972 and 1979.

When selected for the 1978 grand slam tour of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, Jaffray had to ask then PPCS manager Ian Jenkinson, a renown tough task master who liked cars but not rugby, for time off work.

The request was initially rejected but Jaffray convinced a change of heart by saying farmers generally loved rugby and having an All Black on staff would benefit the company.

His first job on leaving school was as a stock agent for Reid Farmers based in Palmerston servicing farmers in East Otago.

He later shifted to PPCS as a prime stock buyer in the same area before transferring to South Canterbury.

In 1980, then-chief executive Stewart Barnett offered him a sales job in head office in Dunedin, specifically selling beef to the United States.

Jaffray says at that stage NZ meat exporters were price takers.

Jaffray saw potential in growing markets for quality, prime beef cuts and over time saw the introduction of the Dubai Beef Quality programme which targeted the Dubai food service sector with beef that met strict production criteria.

It was the precursor to the launch of the SFF Reserve Beef programme and later an Angus beef programme with McDonalds NZ.

On his first sales visit to China in 1997, Jaffray learnt what it takes to do business in China.

Jaffray says you earn the trust of Chinese customers by showing respect to them and their culture, having integrity, strong brands, a story and a point of difference.

By 2008, NZ was also selling animal by-products to China in what was largely a commodity market, but four years later demand for other cuts started to grow fuelled by urbanisation and growing disposable income.

In 2008, PPCS’ annual sales into China were $28 million. Today it is over $850 million. 

“They get the volume because they pay the best price, are loyal to our brand and value long-term relationships,” he said.

“It’s big tonnage, it is a seriously large volume business.”

Jaffray says people should not underestimate China’s influence on the global meat trade.

Because of that volume, exporters are able to leverage global prices paid by other markets.

“China gives us leverage not only through price and volume but because other buyers are aware of China’s influence,” he said.

For example, NZ has been reliant on the United Kingdom as a destination for lamb legs, but now that China is also a customer it has given NZ price leverage.

Jaffray says our relationship with China enabled NZ to weather the global financial crisis better than most other countries.

Other than China, Jaffray has for 20 years been heavily involved in developing chilled trade with the Middle East, creating a key market for SFF.

Jaffray has worked for five PPCS and SFF chief executives, seen the most bitter competition for livestock, the impact of surplus processing capacity and the difficulty of making sales when the NZ dollar was trading at US85c.

He has seen PPCS turnover rise from $25 million in 1972 to $2.5 billion as SFF last year, witness SFF tinkering on the edge of financial collapse and the subsequent spectacular recovery which involved establishing a 50:50 partnership with Chinese food company Shanghai Maling.

He has also seen first-hand in China the benefits of the company’s plate to pasture quality branded meat programme which has provided the story and point of difference in growing sales in the market.

But one thing has never left Jaffray.

“I love the thrill of completing a deal,” he said.

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