Large venison export expansion addressed

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 10

Large venison export expansion addressed

Up to 30,000 tonnes of venison could be available for export annually by the middle of the 19905, a Ministry of Agriculture projection of stock numbers has shown. Dr Ken Drew, who started research with deer at Invermay in 1973, told the Southland Deer Farmers Association’s marketing seminar it was generally agreed that the industry had 160,000 breeding hinds at present. Assuming that the calving rate in the future would be 80 per cent, with 50 per cent of females born and that deaths to weaning and the hind loss each year were each 5 per cent, then the national herd would be about one million animals in 1993. “The Lincoln College economics research unit agrees with this projection if venison returns stay steady and the price of velvet drops to about onethird of what it is now,” said Dr Drew. To estimate the venison production at that time it was assumed that no increase occurred in the velveting herd and that herd replacements took 12 per cent of stags annually. Half of the stags would be killed as yearlings and the remainder as two-year-olds, giving an over-all carcase weight of 60kg. By 1994 an annual stage venison production of 15,000 kg to 17,000 kg would result, Dr Drew maintained. But he then speculated that the hind herd would stabilise on one million, lowering the weaner hind replacement requirement to

only 10 per cent and generating a further 15,000 tonnes a year of hind venison. One of the newest venison processors and exporters, P.P.C.S., was represented among the speakers at the seminar by its general manager, Mr Stuart Barnett. The large sheepmeats marketing co-operative has opened a deer slaughtering plant at Kennington, Invercargill, and Mr Barnett attempted to draw some analogies between the two meat processing and exporting industries. He warned against over-regulation in the developing venison industry. P.P.C.S. had prospered on behalf of its members by always providing a yardstick by which it could be judged: its suppliers by the surpluses over schedule or in the skin pools; its bankers by its balance sheets and its purchasers by its performance. “Don’t allow this yardstick to be cut up so that people can build a fire to warm their backsides,” he said. “Do not divorce producers from the realities of the marketplace,” Mr Barnett said. He asked the deer farmers present to consider where their $lB to $2O a carcase levy was to be spent by the Game Industry Board. If it went to encourage venison consumption and to foster a common quality symbol, he would have no argument, but if the G. 1.8. tried to launch a common brand to the biggest market (West Germany with over 80 per cent of

total exports) or spent the money on counter-produc-tive travel for its members he would be less pleased. If the G. 1.8. took the Meat Board route and limited the number of licenced exporters in each market then the schedule would be limited and producers’ prices would suffer, he said. Competition among exporters for a limited amount of venison was keeping the schedule about $1 a kg too high, based on market returns, according to another exporter who spoke, Mr Andrew Duncan, of Snowline Marketing, Christchurch. Snowline was equipping a further processing plant for venison in Auckland and would sell consumer-ready products through its Queen Street shop and overseas, he said. He calculated that New Zealand venison marketers had spent $1 million in the last four years developing and servicing markets but much of this work would now be better handled by the G. 1.8. His list of requiremments for the industry included: tighter and uniform quality control; co-ordinated promotion and advertising overseas; targeted market research; market entry assistance as tariff barriers were raised; a price reporting scheme and a quality seal of approval throughout the industry. the newly-appointed general manager of the G. 1.8, Mr Mike Pattison, said it

could never become a Meat Board because it had no power to acquire venison. Nor could it limit licence numbers but was required to issue licences to those who satisfied the entry criteria. It could, however, establish clear guidelines for market behaviour and revoke licences when that standard was not adhered to.

“The Game Industry Board is about trying to

insure against vandalism in the marketplace,” said Mr Pattison.

Board members have made two recent trips to the largest market for venison, West Germany.

That market did not care over much where venison came from as long as it was so-called game meat available in season.

The chairman of the G. 1.8., Mr Tom Williams, said at the seminar that the board would begin to try and educate West Germans about farmed deer in New Zealand, by stressing the free-range, all-grass wintering aspects to get away from the Germans’ perception of farmed animals being kept inside for long periods and fed concentrates and chemicals. But that education would have to be done carefully so as not to harm sales in the short term. He anticipated attending large food fairs in Europe with video promotions.