Changes urged in meat industry

Press, 3 April 1987, Page 2

Changes urged in meat industry

Big chapges are needed in both the meat-process-ing industry and the farm production sector if the meat industry is to have a strong and viable future, believes Mr Athol Hutton, managing director of Waikati International.

Twenty years after the announcement of United Kingdom entry into the European Community, the entrenched structure and attitudes of the era of commodity trading still influenced much of the meat industry, said Mr Hutton.

Although commodity trading would still have a place, it could no longer sustain a viable industry, Mr Hutton told the Rangiora Rotary Club last evening. A much higher proportion of the kill had to be moved into the high-mar-gin, highly selective chilled and further-pro-cessed market. The new demands of the market and the economic climate in New Zealand were making conditions extremely difficult for the whole meat industry, but significant progress was being made, said Mr Hutton.

The private meat companies had worked together in a responsible manner to clear the international oversupply of sheep meat, inherited when the Meat Board handed back responsibility for meat marketing 15 months ago. In just one season, stocks were cleared with the exception of the United Kingdom where the oversupply had been reduced significantly.

Mr Hutton said hard business decisions were being taken in regard to the restructuring of the processing industry. Just as marketing patterns could not be turned round overnight, the mistakes of generations of the industry could not be corrected without huge cost. Changes in market development and the structure of the industry would ultimately count for little unless there were corresponding changes in product supply, he said.