Beef to Israel 'missed chance'

By Diattima De Boni

Meat New Zealand is passing up a multimillion-dollar export opportunity, says the New Zealand and Israel Trade Association.

President Michael Nathan and chief executive officer Ezra Karon claim New Zealand could be supplying 40,000 to 50,000 tonnes of kosher beef but potential exporters have put the proposition in the too-hard basket.

But Meat New Zealand's regional manager for the Middle East, Kevin O'Grady, says the board looked very carefully at the cost of setting up kosher operations and the proposition is not feasible.

At present, 95 per cent of the $60 million in trade between the two countries is exports from Israel, mostly high-tech equipment for irrigation and electricity turbines.

However, Israel has few natural resources and Mr Nathan says New Zealand is fully capable of lifting its profile in Israel and attracting meat-buyers away from South American suppliers.

"It would not be a huge cost to the meat industry to implement kosher meat-processing plants," says Mr Nathan.

"It's just a matter of willingness.

"We haven't met a single person who doesn't think the trade [of natural resources] from New Zealand to Israel isn't a good idea," he says.

But Mr O'Grady says Meat New Zealand's research showed that the Israeli market for beef was only 10,000 to 11,000 tonnes a year.

At that level, he says, the returns would not offset the costs of a kosher operation.

Kosher animals must be slaughtered on their backs, cannot be stunned before death and cannot die from loss of blood.

Only half the carcass ends up being used for consumption, and a rabbi must also be brought in to oversee the process.

"Basically, it's a straight commercial operation, and no one's going to get out of bed for the amount we can make out of it."

Mr O'Grady says Meat New Zealand did spend a large, undisclosed sum to set up halal Muslim meat slaughterhouses 15 year ago. However, it has recouped costs with a Middle Eastern export market of nearly half a billion dollars annually.

In early September, a small team of businesspeople led by Ron Turner, of Turners and Growers, will travel to the Agritech Trade Fair in Haifa and meet Israeli Government and business representatives in a bid to raise New Zealand's profile as, among other things, an exporter of primary produce and a high-tech joint venture partner.