Meat quality ‘hurts image’

Press, 13 July 1988, Page 4

Meat quality ‘hurts image’

PA Wellington Some meat exporters are damaging New Zealand’s reputation by failing to produce top quality sheep meat, the Minister of Overseas Trade, Mr Moore, said yesterday.

The Meat Industry Association’s chairman, Sir David Beattie, hit back, saying exporters were working on the qual-ity-control problem but were hampered by the high New Zealand dollar. In a speech delivered on his behalf by the member of Parliament for Hamilton West, Mr Trevor Mallard, to a Meat Industry Research Institute conference in Hamilton, Mr Moore said some companies had made an effort to reach and maintain consistently high quality standards which were recognised internationally. “Unfortunately not all our meat exporters have measured up to the requirements. “They have not paid sufficient attention to quality assurance procedures. They have not consistently applied the available techniques for tenderising meat during processing and have not supplied meat of the highest possible quality to their customers,” he said.

These meat companies were production-driven instead of market-led and had “let down the name of New Zealand.” Sir David told the conference the issue of quality was raised a few months ago, when visiting buyers from two British supermarket chains “very cleverly showed how inconsistency in product quality could be used to

talk down the price of our sheepmeat.” A minimum criteria system had been developed for the United Kingdom which would come into effect in October next year. The system would ensure product quality was improved, Sir David said. Criticism of exporters’ marketing performance overlooked price increases obtained last year for lamb in several countries, for example 23 per cent in Greece and 14 per cent in Spain. “Unfortunately these increases have been masked by the high value of the New Zealand dollar, which is not just a convenient excuse for lack of performance but a genuine and major source of concern.” Many companies were investing time and money in developing new packaging and storage techniques to get product into premium markets “even when faced with extremely adverse circumstances,” he said.