A message from the European meat market

The NZ sheep industry must continue to respond to the needs of the modern consumer if it is to maintain and grow its place in key markets, according to M&WNZ Chair, Mike Petersen."Many UK sheep farmers talked with envy about how successful NZ lamb has been in making inroads at retail and food service throughout the European market. "But we have to continue to look at how we are presenting the product and the portion size. As an example, in Berlin 50% of the population is a one-person household, and Germany is our second largest sheep meat market."The modern consumer is looking for a product that is nutritious and easy to prepare and NZ lamb is an ideal fit. However portion size is also an important part of the purchase process, and in the case of lamb legs, we are shutting off a growing part of the market. "Mr Petersen said his visit had included a range of meetings with farmer organisations in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany and these relationships are continuing to strengthen. "The reality is that imports and domestic lamb provide year-round supply so we can work together to grow the market. We also reinforced that the steady growth in chilled has been in response to market demand, and Europeans were surprised to hear that chilled lamb is still only 23% of our total exports into their market." "The fundamentals of food production haven't changed. We are still faced with a looming shortage of food to feed a growing world, and NZ is well placed to meet that demand. To use the UK as an example, sheepmeat has only 8% of retail meat share by volume and NZ lamb is one third of that. We are confident that in Europe's market of 450 million consumers there will continue to be solid demand for lamb even in today's economic environment.