Silver Fern Farms is dispatching the first sea-freight container shipment of chilled beef to China as part of the six-month trial to test chilled red meat access into the Chinese market.
In late June, New Zealand's first consignments of chilled meat were air-freighted from Alliance Group and Greenlea Premier Meats.
Yesterday, SFF general manager sales Grant Howie said it was understood to be the first sea-freight container to test the market.
It was important to test the market's protocols and supply chain for chilled meat at sea-ports as well as via air freight, Mr Howie said in a statement.
''With chilled product in China, we need to test the process at scale, which is why we have worked with one of our customers to take a full 20ft container of chilled product,'' he said.