Photo: 123RF
An insatiable hunger for beef hamburgers and a renewed love for lamb are helping keep New Zealand's red meat sector buoyant, while demand from China remains weak.
New Zealand's red meat exports to the United States and Canada have risen this year.
Meat Industry Association data showed North America was the country's largest export market for red meat - having first surpassed China for the top spot in April.
Its latest figures for May found exports to the US were up 28 percent on last year, earning $358 million for the economy in the month alone.
Red meat co-operative Alliance Group's global sales director James McWilliam had just returned from a week-long market trip to North America.
He said beef sales were doing really well there.
"We've obviously enjoyed a fairly strong season when it comes to beef into North America, which has certainly assisted in offsetting some really depressed demand we've seen in other parts of the world."
McWilliam said the co-op was able to plug the gap in demand left by the declining US cow herd - which is at its lowest level since the late 1970s.
"We've been able to capitalise on that by sending a significant amount of some of our manufacturing lines, in particular, to take advantage of the good old hamburger.
"There's no one in the world that consumes burgers like the North Americans do. And so we've seen very, very strong returns, comparatively speaking, for our grinding meat into North America."
He said forecasts remained fairly strong on the beef front for the coming month.
'Extremely tough' for NZ meat industry
But McWilliam said slowed Chinese demand had resulted in a very challenging year for the industry.
"The global outlook remains really volatile, and it's been an extremely tough season for both growers, producers and obviously processors and marketers," he said.
"The anchor that is China has certainly dragged us down in the last year or so."
But he said there was optimism things would turn around there.
"We are constantly reviewing China. China is still a significant market with a significant amount of volume and value tied up with that."
Possible impact of US presidential election on foreign imports
McWilliam said Alliance was in a "very strong position" to face any changing market access requirements into the United States, if they arise after the November election.
US presidential candidate Donald Trump promised voters he would impose greater tariffs and tighter quotas on all imported products into the States .
Alliance was one of a handful of Australasian meat companies - including ANZCO and Silver Fern Farms - with shares in co-operative supply business The Lamb Company - which had a network of retail packing, processing and offices throughout North America.
McWilliam said Alliance will closely monitor any market access changes that may come after November's election - and said The Lamb Company gave it "a significant competitive advantage".
"We're in a very strong position with our majority shareholding in The Lamb Company business in North America, and where there are import tariffs that's usually supported by quotas," McWilliam said.
"Suffice to say, we'll have access to the largest quota being a significant shareholder in that entity, which will give us the ability to continue to position our product into that market.
"We'll continually follow that and watch the space, and adapt accordingly."
