McIvor moving to OSPRI
Beef + Lamb New Zealand chief executive for the past eight years, Sam McIvor is heading for new pastures at Ospri, which runs NZ’s integrated animal disease management and traceability service.
Marks & Spencer says it will no longer stock New Zealand lamb in its Scottish stores and will sell only locally produced lamb.
Beef + Lamb NZ chairman James Parsons, who was in Britain, France, Ireland and Belgium last week to assess what impact Brexit may have on NZ meat exports, was present for the Marks & Spencer announcement. He says Scottish farmers have pushed the supermarket for some time to support local produce.
“From our perspective it’s disappointing – not just from a parochial perspective either,” Parsons says. “In my view, this is actually bad for the lamb category because currently we have NZ lamb basically going up to the UK in their off season when they don’t produce product.”
He added that for the Scots to supply for 12 months of the year a lot of old-season lamb will have to be used to maintain year-round supply.
“I don’t think that’s a great experience for the consumers.”
Parsons says Marks & Spencer imported only small volumes from NZ – around 29,000 lambs annually.
“To put it in context, we’re talking about 10 or 12 NZ farms and of that, only about half of the carcase; they don’t use the whole carcase at Marks & Spencer stores.”
He believes other supermarkets will pick up the market share and business if consumers do not get what they want from Marks & Spencer.
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.
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