By PHILIPPA STEVENSON and NZPA
The Dairy Board will hold its September meeting in Europe next week, continuing a trend of familiarising directors with key markets.
Teams of directors who began departing yesterday will visit Britain, New Zealand's traditional market, Russia, the key butter market, Germany, now the central site for the
ingredients business, and Brussels, where the board recently opened an office to strengthen its trade watchdog role in Europe.
Past meetings have been held in Fort Lauderdale, in the United States, and in Singapore.
The 13 directors are expected to gain insights into issues facing the board's marketers in Europe. It will also be a chance for those staff to meet them.
Board director and Kiwi Dairies chief executive Craig Norgate said he would visit Russia for the first time.
"I have not been there before and should have been, because it's a defining market internationally for fat," he said.
Mr Norgate said Kiwi's board, which recently bought a majority share in a West Australian dairy company, held its August meeting in Perth.
"It's an international business [and] you've got to have directors with hands on it."
Board spokesman Neville Martin said the meeting was being held at a time European Union policies were critical to the New Zealand dairy industry's markets there.
The signing of the Gatt Uruguay Round agreement, which "Europeanised" New Zealand's British butter quota, changed the nature of business and meant that, instead of dealing with Britain's officials alone, the board needed to work in a much wider regulatory environment.
Over the past five years, the EU has boosted from 3 per cent to 5 per cent the portion of its dairy markets accessible to third countries such as New Zealand.
This has opened up 83,000 tonnes of cheese, 10,000 tonnes of butter and 69 tonnes of skim milkpowder to competition, with the Dairy Board picking up about a third of the extra butter sales.
About 40 per cent of New Zealand butter going to Europe is shipped to the Continent, outside the traditional British market, even though many northern Europeans prefer unsalted butter.
