4 Life yet in sharemilking Vol 16 No 10, March 13, 2017
farmersweekly.co.nz
NZ story to tell F
Neal Wallace neal.wallace@nzx.com
ARMERS, meat processors and the Government have decided to launch a New Zealand red meat story marketing tool to promote and differentiate NZ beef and lamb. This follows a workshop earlier this month of 70 farmers, meat exporters and Government officials who concluded telling consumers the story of NZ meat production would assist marketing and promotion. “It’s definitely going to happen,” Beef + Lamb NZ chief executive Sam McIvor said in an interview. The final format of the red meat story was undecided but McIvor said it could be a brand or appellation added to packaging that sat alongside existing brands. It has evolved from the development of the NZ Farm Assurance Programme by the Red Meat Profit Partnership and followed interviews with 45 farmers to understand their stories and interviews with overseas retailers, importers and distributors. McIvor said developing a story was also consistent with support last year by farmers and processors for B+LNZ retaining a market development role of which this was a part. “Very clearly across the board farmers and processors said ‘yes, you do have a role’.” McIvor said feedback from farmers was that consumers were not being told the NZ red meat story, a view shared by Mike Lee, the chief executive of the New York-based food design and innovation agency Studio Industries. Lee told the conference that what
farmers considered mundane and normal was remarkable to consumers and food enthusiasts. Everyday occurrences such as being at one with the land, a passion to do right by their grass-fed livestock, managing pastures and the environment, family and community involvement and inter-generational farm ownership were considered remarkable. “Stories are what connect people and so any story about food is actually a human story, about the growers and farmers and where and how they produce food,” Lee said in a statement.
Stories are what connect people and so any story about food is actually a human story, about the growers and farmers and where and how they produce food. Mike Lee Studio Industries “Food today is no longer just about sustenance, it’s intrinsically linked with social bonds and personal values. “The food consumers eat says something about how they want the world to be, so in essence people are eating their values and these include the way animals are farmed, although food also needs to deliver on taste,” he said. McIvor said the next step was to collate information from the workshop and then create a NZ story straw man to be circulated for feedback with tenders to be called from agencies in the coming months.
Farmers were humble but McIvor said Lee’s message was that they needed to be louder in telling their story. “We need to be a bit more confident. We have a good story to tell and we need to be confident in telling it.” International recognition that NZ was consistently the world’s least corrupt country and one of the easiest to do business with would all bolster an endorsement story. Claims made by the story would be validated by the NZ Farm Assurance Programme but also by Government administered areas such as food safety. McIvor said it required the industry to be honest in addressing areas of concern. “For example, say that we are aware of concerns about water quality. Be honest, but show we have a plan to address it and if you come back in a year here is the progress we have made. “It’s about you controlling your relationship with the consumer rather than others controlling it.” An aim of the farm assurance programme was that farmers would not have to duplicate compliance but the degree of regulation would be influenced by the story’s content. Ireland’s Origin Green has been seen as a blueprint for a NZ Story but McIvor said while the principles were similar the structure was likely to be different. McIvor was confident the plan had buy-in from processors and consensus was being sought at every step. “The Red Meat Profit Partnership has brought companies and farmers closer together around a common vision and that has stepped up to the red meat sector market development programme.”
MORE: EMERSON’S TAKE
P30
CONFIDENCE: Farmers have a good story to tell and we need to be confident in telling it, B+LNZ chief executive Sam McIvor says.
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