Excluding those products, overall sales volumes fell 1.4 per cent and eight of the other 12 manufacturing industries recorded falls in volumes in the quarter.
"The volume increase in meat and dairy manufacturing is reflected in the rise of export volumes for dairy and meat products, with increases of 32 per cent in dairy, and 15 per cent in meat," said industry and labour statistics manager Blair Cardno.
"Looking at the longer-term picture, the trend for manufacturing volumes has risen in the past year."
Metal product manufacturing dropped 6.9 per cent in the quarter.
Chemical, polymer, and rubber product manufacturing rose 7.3 per cent.
ASB economist Christina Leung said while Statistics New Zealand's Economic Survey of Manufacturing showed an increase in activity over the quarter, this was largely driven by dairy and meat manufacturing.
"We estimate excluding these components, manufacturing production volumes was broadly flat over Q3 on a seasonally-adjusted basis," she said.
"This is the measure which is relevant for GDP production, given StatsNZ measures dairy and meat manufacturing activity for its GDP measure based on milk solids production and slaughter numbers - both of which have eased in recent months from the high levels seen over the first half of 2012."
- nzherald.co.nz
