The main categories of the industry
Several categories dominate the food and beverage industry:
- Dairy: Products in this category range from high quality basics such as milk powders, butter and bulk cheese through to specialty foods such as ice cream, artisan cheeses, and highly specialised ingredients like spray-dried milk proteins, protein hydrolysates and freeze-dried bio-active proteins. Fonterra, a co-operative owned by over 11,000 New Zealand dairy farmers, is responsible for over one-third of the international dairy trade. The dairy industry is New Zealand’s biggest export earner and is an established global industry – in 2008 dairy exports amounted to NZ$9.29 billion, approximately 22 percent of total exports.
- Meat: Meat is New Zealand’s second largest food export. Exports totalled NZ$5.14 billion in 2008; approximately 12 percent of the country’s total exports. New Zealand is the world’s largest exporter of sheep meat (the umbrella term for lamb, hogget, ram and mutton).
- Seafood: With the world’s fourth largest coastal fishing zone, New Zealand harvests around 96 species of fish and shellfish sustainably using the Quota Management System (QMS). The New Zealand seafood industry produces one billion meals annually in New Zealand and overseas.
- Fruit and vegetables: Geographically isolated and with stringent biosecurity regulations, New Zealand is free of many of the major pests and diseases prevalent elsewhere in the world. More than $1.8 billion of exports were generated in this category in the year ending June 2008. New Zealand supplies just over 20 percent of the world’s kiwifruit.
- Wine: Once small and family-based, the New Zealand wine industry has grown and today is technologically advanced, producing a wide variety of distinctive, clean, character-filled wines. In 2008, New Zealand wine exports were worth $903 million, a massive increase from the $60 million the industry was exporting just a decade earlier, and a 37 percent increase over 2006.
- Specialty food industries: There are now more than 2,000 specialty food and beverage manufacturers in New Zealand adding value to a broad base of natural products. These have experienced solid growth in export earnings since 1990. From a total of $2.9 billion in exports in 1990, export receipts reached $8.7 billion in 2006. Major markets are the United States, Australia, Europe, Japan and China.
Some of New Zealand’s international successes have been:
- Four of Otago-based New Zealand Honey Specialties Ltd’s products are now stocked in some 430 of the United Kingdom’s largest health food retailer Holland and Barrett’s stores. The products are now stocked in over 1000 high-end supermarkets and health stores across the United Kingdom.
- Kiwi favourite Whittaker’s Peanut Slab chocolate bar is now stocked in 4000 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan following an annual chocolate promotion in 2008. Asil Group, which has looked after all of Whittaker’s exports to Asia for over 15 years, says the success comes down to the uniqueness and quality of the product.
- Griffins Food Group has recently had their biscuits accepted into several major supermarket chains in the United States.
The global food and beverage opportunity
The global food and beverage market was worth US$5.7 trillion in 2008. Total consumer spending in the United Kingdom on food, beverages and tobacco was estimated to be US$215.7 billion in 2008 (12 percent of household spending). In the United States, total food, beverage and tobacco consumer spending for 2008 was US$914.7 billion (9.1 percent of total household spending), and in Australia the figure was US$77.2 billion (14 percent of total household spending).
There are several major trends that are changing the way consumers around the world eat.
The increase in obesity and a greater level of health-consciousness has boosted demand for fresh agricultural products and poultry, whereas demand for dairy products and red meat has declined.
Ready-to-eat foods and meals eaten outside the home account for around one-quarter of total food expenditure, and are becoming more popular. The challenge for food and beverage manufacturers is to combine these two trends into healthy, nutritious but convenient meal solutions.
How NZTE is working with the food and beverage sector
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) works closely with a targeted group of companies and industry groups, which have the potential for high growth rates.
NZTE aims to encourage market-focused product development - from agribusiness, right through to the companies producing high value specialty foods. We also support companies focused on strategic international engagement rather than exports.
The core principles of sustainability (economic, environment and social) are central to much of the activity planned by the NZTE’s food and beverage sector team.
The F&B sector team has oversight of the Creating Value from the Primary Sector (CVPS) strategic initiative, which has three key areas of focus:
- Enhance the productive capability of the sector, using enabling technologies such as biotechnology and ICT where appropriate
- Promote innovative international business models
- Maximise the New Zealand branding opportunity
and two principal regions of focus:
- Asia (North and South East)
- The Americas
Trade shows
NZTE coordinates New Zealand’s presence at a number of trade shows around the world including Food Hotel China, Foodex Japan and National Restaurant Association (USA). In addition, NZTE develops leveraging programmes at other trade shows to maximise networking and brand development opportunities with key industry influencers.
New Zealand business centres
Business centres in Hong Kong (New Zealand Focus) and Shanghai (New Zealand Central) provide an avenue for New Zealand food and beverage companies to facilitate trade opportunities in Hong Kong, China and the wider North Asia region.
Food and Beverage taskforce
In 2004, the Food and Beverage Taskforce was established in an effort to combine the resources of industry, government, science and education to enhance New Zealand’s role in the international food industry.
> Read more about the Food and Beverage Taskforce
Find out more
To find out more about NZTE’s work in the food and beverage industry, or to talk with an NZTE representative about participating in initiatives in the food and beverage industry:
