Garth George: Something fishy about price of produce

I was leafing through an old magazine in a hospital waiting room the other day when I came across a joke: "My wife complains that her clothes are so old they are all made in New Zealand."

It provided a laugh-out-loud moment for me, but the laughter was of irony rather than humour as I reflected on the demise in the past 25 years of so much of our local industry.

When I got home I riffled through the two dozen or so shirts I have in my wardrobe and could find only three that were made in New Zealand. All the rest, including my lifelong favourite, Summit, were made in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh or Fiji.

Now this won't come as any surprise to anyone, but it got me to thinking about the richly fertile land of plenty we live in - and how we pay through the nose these days for much of the produce thereof.

Take fish. The seas around this island nation teem with fish of all varieties, yet when I go to the supermarket I cannot afford to buy any of the most popular species and must content myself with the cheaper, which go best in a fish pie.

At more than $40 a kilogram snapper is way out of my budget, as is tarakihi and gurnard at between $30 and $40, so I'm left with hoki at $16. My favourite, blue cod from the South Island, is rarely available and generally costs as much, if not more, than the inferior snapper.

Salmon, too, is way up there at $30 to $40 a kg, but I couldn't care less really, since as far as I'm concerned the only way to eat salmon is out of a can.

Though they have been part of my life since I was old enough to eat them, Bluff oysters ($28 a dozen, or $2.33 each, at Foodtown this week) have been off my menu for years. So I remember with pleasure and longing those days when a shilling (10c) would buy a feed of oysters and chips sufficient to satisfy the lunch needs of a voracious teenage boy.

According to a story in the Herald on Sunday last weekend, latest statistics show that, on average, fish and seafood have increased in price by 18.6 per cent in the past four years.

So it's not surprising to read that domestic consumption has dropped from 34,337 tonnes in 2005 to 28,539 tonnes last year.

Then there's lamb, my favourite meat next to wild rabbit which I haven't had the pleasure of eating for many a year.

The only time I can afford to buy a leg of lamb is when it's on special. The last one I bought set me back just on $26, marked down from $36. It's not that long ago I could have bought a whole dressed lamb carcass for $20 max.

But what seems strangest of all is that were I buying that same-sized leg of NZ lamb in a Sainsbury's supermarket in England this week, the price would be the equivalent of just over $23 - $13 cheaper than here.

I know our sheep numbers have fallen drastically as more farmers convert to the goldmine of dairy. According to Meat and Wool NZ statistics there were some 70 million sheep in the country in 1983 but only 32.4 million last year.

And that brings me to wool. I can't remember the last time I bought a genuine New Zealand-made woollen garment, simply because it's a long time since I was able to afford such a luxury.

And that's in spite of the fact wool prices, apparently on the up, have been in freefall for the past 15 years to such an extent our wool exports grossed a mere $777 million last year compared with $1.24 billion in 1995.

Now I know there are all sorts of costs involved between the catching of the fish or the growing of the meat and wool and the retail floor. The fisherman, according to the Herald on Sunday story, gets $2 a kg for the snapper he catches. Fish merchants say it takes 3kg of whole fish to make 1kg of fillets. Okay, that makes $6 a kg.

Processing plants apparently add 25 per cent, freight and packaging add 10 per cent and retailers another 35 per cent. So, processing plants take the price to $7.50 a kg, freight and packaging to $8.25 and retailers to about $11.75 a kg.

The same sort of production, processing and transport costs probably apply to meat and wool so where is the justification for charging $41 a kg for snapper, $30 to $40 for a leg of lamb, or $40 to $50 a kg for eye fillet steak?

Somewhere along the line we're being ripped off bigtime.