Beattie confident of bright meat future

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON

The tough global meat industry might be fit only for fight-hardened gladiators but after 120 years in the arena New Zealand is set to triumph, says Meat Industry Association chairman Sir David Beattie.

Yesterday, stepping down after 13 years heading the export meat processor representative organisation, Sir David said he was confident the meat industry, backed by huge technological advances, was poised for a period of unparalleled progress.

"Today's meat players no longer see themselves in the 'freezing industry.' Their trade is in the food business. They use the language of 'food creation' and 'finding meal solutions.' That amounts to a huge cultural shift," Sir David said.

The industry was in greater spirit than for most of the past 13 years, even while the global food industry from producer to marketer experienced intense change, and the national and international regulatory environment rapidly restructured.

A quantum leap in the use of new technology would mean "robotics for packaging, machine-vision techniques for selection of cuts, automatic carton handling, and automated cutting and deboning systems," Sir David said.

In the past the ideal lamb was suitable for roasting but now, to catch the eye of increasingly choosy consumers, New Zealand meat had to be attractively packaged, convenient to handle, easy to prepare, safe to eat, nutritious, tasty and offer value for money.

The changing marketplace had transformed the traditional seasonal meat industry into a year-round business, said Sir David, who charted some changes he had observed since 1987.

Then the industry had 30,000 employees, nine out ot 10 producing frozen carcases, "their lonely colleague worked on turning carcases into cuts."

"Today, more than 50 per cent of the workforce at a typical multi-chain plant is employed on further processing, making sure the final item has maximum added value."

Carcases were now only about 10 per cent of lamb exports, while 90 per cent of the product could go straight into retail cabinets.

"For the first time this year, the volume of premium chilled product, expected to be 12 per cent of all lamb shipment or about 30,000 tonnes, will be larger than the frozen carcase trade."

Sir David said that offsetting the positive outlook were such "sobering realities" as the effects of local weather, seen most recently in the droughts of 1992, 1997 and 1998, the comparatively small size of the industry, and Government policy shifts that could harm exporters.

The industry faced a challenge in the opposition to biotechnology that had the potential to improve agricultural efficiency by bridging the natural barriers previously limiting traditional cross-breeding and selection.

Market access remained a preoccupation with an industry exporting more than 80 per cent of its products, and recently the most time-consuming aspect had been the sanitary and phytosanitary regimes that Sir David said were merely "technical barriers to trade."

He said he had some sympathy for our regulatory agencies but highlighted a "festering situation" between the industry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in which relations were the most strained they had ever been.

The industry regarded MAF's field of competency as food safety but a complex and costly regulatory framework impinged on many of the most fundamental aspects of company operations, including accident insurance, employment relations, injury prevention, occupational health and resource management.

"The aggregate financial load has been substantial. In most years in the past decade the combined costs of the ACC and frontline meat inspection alone exceeded the industry's collective after-tax profit."

Regrettably the regulatory framework still appeared not to have reached its limit, Sir David said.

Former Petrocorp chief executive Bill Falconer is the new chairman.