EXPORT OF LAMB

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30063, 22 February 1963, Page 12

EXPORT OF LAMB

Need To Survey U.S. Market

(N.Z. Press Association) HAMILTON, Feb. 21

If New Zealand is to compete on world markets with its products, it will have to spend a lot of money to overcome problems that no miracle will solve, said Dr. Daniel Brady, agricultural attache to the United States Embassy, at the Waikato chilled beef championships in the Horotiu hall today.

New Zealand would have to be more patient in assessing market requirements, he added. "You will have to decide what it’s worth to get a nation, like the United States, interested in lamb, knowing they have had no experience of it. How many chips are you prepared to put on the line?” he asked.

Referring to the need for patient research in breaking into a new market, Dr. Brady said the United States had developed a market for poultry in the Netherlands. “At first we were not successful,” he said. “But eventually we convinced the Dutch poultryfarmers that our encouraging their consumers to eat more poultry was of benefit to them.”

Asked why American people did not like lamb, Dr. Brady said: “Every country develops its own eating habits, without apparent rhyme or reason. We just convince ourselves we like a certain thing, and that is that,” he said. At one time there were 50 million sheep in the United States, but today there were only 30 million. “Unless you get in the market now and hold what lamb customers you have, it’s going to be more difficult in the future,” he said.