Meat co-op seeks capital from farmer shareholders
Meat processor Alliance Group is asking farmer shareholders to inject more capital in order to remain a 100% co-operative.
The co-branded lamb products will be launched in China's retail and food service sectors next month as the co-operative and its in-market partner Grand Farm strengthen their close ties.
The initial focus of the programme will be on the upper end of the Chinese market with five regions, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Harbin, being targeted. The products will be available from eight retail chains boasting 200 selected outlets before being rolled out to other parts of the country.
David Surveyor, chief executive of Alliance Group says it is a new range of New Zealand-packed product specially designed for the Chinese market and co-branded Pure South and Grand Farm.
"It marks a major milestone in our vision to create new product forms and ranges that will be either produced from source or further processed in the market to meet the growing demands of China's food service sector."
He added the regions had been selected based on the higher purchasing power of the consumers, concentration of foreigners and higher economic activity.
"This initiative will help us build a deeper understanding of the supply and value chains and eventually secure the added value we are seeking in this market with a 'packed-at-origin' offering.
"Our focus in China is on capturing more market value for our 5,000 farmer-shareholders by understanding consumer tastes and getting better at matching our products and markets and investing more in new product development and packaging."
In April, the cooperative signed an agreement with Grand Farm at a ceremony in China. The agreement, which signals further strategic co-operation between Alliance Group and Grand Farm, sets out a robust plan to improve the returns and add value to both businesses.
Grand Farm owns 96 meat shops, operates 260 branded meat counters in selected hypermarkets and supplies over 1000 hypermarkets in China.
Alliance Group has been working in China since the mid-1990s and is now the country's largest exporter of New Zealand lamb to the country.
Grand Farm is the best known distributor and marketer of top quality red meat in Northern China.
