Source: Radio New Zealand
File image. 123RF
Meat company ANZCO is working to get shipments of beef caught up in the Middle East conflict back to New Zealand to sell on the domestic market.
General manager of sales and marketing Rick Walker said shipments of premium beef cuts that were on the way to Dubai have been parked by shipping companies in various ports.
“We only had a handful of containers on route to Dubai so our exposure is very small compared to some other meat companies but we are now in the process of figuring out what the best alternative is for those containers is – whether we bring them home or we find another market for them.
“It depends on the product and what its end use was going to be, but a lot of it will come back to New Zealand.”
Walker said some of the beef has specific Arabic labelling which would make it difficult to transfer it into other markets.
“So it’s probably easier to bring it back to New Zealand, we can find homes for it here in the domestic market. There’s good demand here, so that’s probably the easiest answer for us at the moment.”
Walker said the containers are chilled so the meat has a shelf life of about 120 days.
“It’s important to remember we are only a week into dealing with this – so we do have time but at the same time we are not going to wait, we want to make decisions pretty quickly.”
So with shipments of meat bound for the Middle East possibly returning to New Zealand – could consumers be in for cheaper cuts? Walker doesn’t think so.
“I think that’s a big step to take, it will depend again on what cuts are coming back, are they chilled? Are they frozen? Every company will then have to make its decision on frozen product. Do you bring it back into inventory and then make a decision what to do with it from there in terms of other export opportunities?
“So in theory, more supply in New Zealand provides the opportunity for lower prices, but it’s hard to see that really playing out at any level that’s going to be material in the short term, particularly when we’ve got very tight livestock numbers here in New Zealand at the moment and very high livestock prices.”
Walker said demand for red meat around the world is high – so going forward any product that would have gone to the Middle East can go to other markets like the US and Asia.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
