Analysis

Trade Me comes to Fieldays

New Zealand’s number one digital marketplace, Trade Me, has partnered with Fieldays to deliver their first ever online event. The online powerhouse is set to streamline Fieldays’ digital transactions and customer service experience. “It makes sense at a time of global uncertainty that two trustworthy brands come together. Trade Me, like Fieldays, is all about connecting people and businesses. It’s a winning combination, to have them on board ensures we have our digital platforms and transactions running perfectly,” says New Zealand National Fieldays Society CEO Peter Nation. Now a household name, over 1.5 million Kiwis visit Trade Me daily and the platform offers greater opportunities to reach a wider audience. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with the New Zealand National Fieldays Society to power online sales and help with marketing the 2020 Virtual Fieldays to Kiwis. The agricultural sector makes up a massive part of our Trade Me community and we’d like to help make this ‘first of its kind’ event a success,” says Ivan Fuyala, Head of Audience at Trade Me. For over 50 years Kiwis and those around the globe have trusted The New Zealand National Fieldays Society to deliver an iconic event that brings town and country together. “This is a first for Fieldays, we know the physical event and all it entails is incomparable, but we’re determined to deliver a world class event despite the current circumstances we face as a nation and globally,” says Nation. Fieldays is attended by approximately 130,000 people every year. From the beloved Tractor Pull competition to the Innovations Centre, Fieldays is a space for old friends to catch up, entrepreneurs to launch their innovations and businesses to connect and generate sales with their customers. The Southern Hemisphere’s largest agri-event generates approximately $180M for the local economy, while on a national level it provides […]

DairyNZ calls for ‘split gas’ Paris target

DairyNZ is urging the Government’s Independent Climate Change Commission to bring our international emissions reduction targets in line with our domestic targets legislated in the Zero Carbon Act by taking a ‘split gas’ approach, chief executive Dr Tim Mackle says. “Last year New Zealand took a world leading approach by legislating a split gas target in the Zero Carbon Act,” Dr Mackle says. “This recognised that methane is a short-lived gas and requires a different approach to the long-lived carbon dioxide. “While we need to take carbon to net zero, we can achieve a situation where we are no longer adding to global warming by reducing and stabilising our methane emissions.” New Zealand’s international target is currently expressed as a reduction of all greenhouse gases by 30 percent on 2005 levels. “This is a misalignment with our domestic policy and what the science has said on methane. Having an international target that splits the gases will send a much clearer signal to the international community on why New Zealand’s approach is in line with a 1.5 degrees target,” said Dr Mackle. “It will also allow us to put something on the table that is domestically achievable, and it will support policy alignment with what was legislated last year through the Zero Carbon Bill. “We are urging the Climate Change Commission to consider if New Zealand’s international target should be recommunicated as a split gas target, the same as how we are approaching this issue domestically. “While the Commission is reviewing our Paris Commitments, they should also be reviewing our domestic targets – particularly the methane reduction target which is set as a broad range – to ensure they are fair and appropriate in a New Zealand context,” Dr Mackle concluded.

SweeGen accelerates global expansion with new food and beverage application centres

New centres enable deep collaboration with global and regional customers on sugar reduction and taste innovations Global food and beverage manufacturers can now easily create and collaborate on exploring sugar reduction solutions with SweeGen in its newly launched Food and Beverage Application Centres located in four global regions — North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. The centres will create synergy and local interaction with new and existing customers thereby accelerating new product development reflecting local consumer preferences in taste, flavors and ingredients. “This expansion on application and technical support into local markets is our continuing commitment to provide a unique sugar reduced solution that rapidly reduces product development time for our customers, and delivers a winning product for the region, said Shari Mahon, S.V.P., application technology. “Each facility will feature a full spectrum of development capabilities supporting beverage, dairy, confectionery, snack and bakery foods.” The flagship California centre opened first this year. Mexico and Europe to follow, and Asia-Pacific slated to open by the end of 2020. The opening of the European centre will coincide with an anticipated EFSA approval of the company’s Rebaudioside M stevia sweetener in Europe. Additionally, and planned to open later this year in Europe, the company will produce more than 3,000 metric tons of stevia sweeteners per year at its new manufacturing site. The personalised customer service at the centres is just one of SweeGen’s competitive advantages. SweeGen also provides manufacturers access to reliable high purity world-scale supply of best tasting zero-calorie stevia sweeteners. “The investment we’ve made in our new application centres is an investment we’ve made in our customer relationships and their businesses,” said Luca Giannone, vice president of sales and marketing. “We see stevia as the preferred global ingredient for sugar reduction and that’s possible because SweeGen scales the production of Reb […]

Global food industry M&A deals total $2.72bn in February 2020

Total food industry M&A deals in February 2020 worth $2.72bn were announced globally, according to GlobalData’s deals database. The value marked an increase of 522.2% over the previous month and a rise of 41.1% when compared with the last 12-month average, which stood at $1.93bn. Comparing deals value in different regions of the globe, North America held the top position, with total announced deals in the period worth $1.63bn. At the country level, Canada topped the list in terms of deal value at $1.2bn. In terms of volumes, North America emerged as the top region for food industry M&A deals globally, followed by Europe and then Asia-Pacific. The top country in terms of M&A deals activity in February 2020 was the US with 13 deals, followed by the UK with four and Canada with four. In 2020, as of the end of February 2020, food M&A deals worth $3.16bn were announced globally, marking a decrease of 24.03% year on year. Food industry M&A deals in February 2020: Top deals The top five food industry M&A deals accounted for 99.6% of the overall value during February 2020. The combined value of the top five food M&A deals stood at $2.71bn, against the overall value of $2.72bn recorded for the month. The top five food industry deals of February 2020 tracked by GlobalData were: Mondelez International’s $1.2bn acquisition of Give And Go Prepared Foods The $825.86m acquisition of Glycom by Royal DSM Dairy Farmers of America’s $425m asset transaction with Dean Foods The $227.25m acquisition of Ajinomoto(Thailand) Ltd by AjinomotoInc SATS’s acquisition of Monty’s Bakehouse UK for $34.72m.

Dairy committed to environmental journey

The Our Freshwater 2020 report released today highlights New Zealand’s environmental challenges and where we can all play our part. DairyNZ strategy and investment leader for environment, Dr David Burger, said dairy farmers are committed to protecting New Zealand’s environment and taking action on-farm to support that. “Our dairy sector is on the journey to improve and protect water quality outcomes and our farmers have been working toward this for over a decade. We are continuing to do more every year,” said Dr Burger. “The Freshwater 2020 report does draw some key themes together for urban, farming and forestry, and shows us that all land use has an impact on our freshwater.” However, Dr Burger said the report’s approach compares current water quality with native forest waterway condition, and DairyNZ believes it is therefore somewhat misleading. “We know that all development has an impact on water quality but it is unrealistic to compare to native forest state. An estimated 95 percent of total river length in pastoral catchments exceeded one or more guideline values simply because they are being compared to very high native forest standard,” said Dr Burger. “Interestingly, more than 50 percent of native waterways also failed to meet this criteria. This sets the benchmark very high for catchments with modified land use. “We welcome further work to develop a more robust environmental reporting system, which is important to understand how to best manage this complex issue, but to also provide assurance that all the environmental actions landowners undertake is leading to improved water quality outcomes.” Dr Burger said Our Freshwater 2020 does illustrates how vital the work underway is – particularly the importance of protecting and restoring wetlands, mitigating the impacts of all contaminants and improving ecosystem health. “We […]

Recovering the economy

New Zealand business needs a new approach from Government to regulation, projects and procurement if the economy is going to start to recover. EMA Chief Executive Brett O’Riley has called for a new recovery playbook by Government to give businesses the flexibility to recover and thrive, and potentially increase their productivity. “As we prepare for moving out of Alert Level 4 we have an opportunity for changes to be made that can ‘fast start’ existing businesses and potentially expand employment in key sectors. We understand the Government is up for change and our discussions with businesses point to some quick wins, with sectors like manufacturing and construction poised ready to go,” says Mr O’Riley. Key initiatives the EMA are advocating to be implemented as we come out of Alert Level 4 include: – using fast track and streamlined RMA consenting for shovel-ready projects, with consenting led by the project entities. – consent and bylaw changes to enable businesses and projects to operate 24 hours a day with multiple shifts, to speed up progress and to encourage businesses to hire more staff to fill the shifts. – reintroduction of the 90-day trial period to enable businesses to trial staff seeking to enter new industries and roles. – use the acclaimed SCIRT and NCTIR project delivery models, developed for the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquake recoveries. – allow open book procurement by Government enabling lead contractors to be appointed to major projects quickly. – bring forward maintenance activity throughout New Zealand on roads, rail, hospital and schools, the latter while students are at home. – Re-purpose the Provincial Growth Fund to provide small local councils with the funding they need to kick-start those maintenance programmes. – change foreign investment rules and fast track OIO approvals to encourage private sector investment into new projects […]

OnRobot Soft Gripper brings flexible handling

The new OnRobot food-grade Soft Gripper is able to pick a wide array of irregular shapes and delicate items in food and beverage, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals production, as well as manufacturing or packaging Automation just got easier for food and beverages that need to handle items from eggs to fruit, to bottles or irregular-shaped containers. The flexible OnRobot Soft Gripper uses three interchangeable silicon-molded cups in star and four-finger configurations to pick up almost any small object under 2.2kg with a delicate, precise touch. The electric Soft Gripper is food-grade certified (complies with FDA 21 CFR for non-fatty items and EC 1935/2004) and unlike traditional vacuum grippers, it requires no external air supply, so it can reduce both cost and complexity. “Our new Soft Gripper is challenging existing solutions for picking hard-to-grasp, delicate and odd-sized items,” says CEO of OnRobot, Enrico Krog Iversen. “Unlike proprietary solutions, the Soft Gripper offers seamless integration with most collaborative robots and light industrial robots through our One System Solution.” OnRobot’s award-winning One System Solution is a platform that provides a unified mechanical and electrical interface between leading robot arms and any OnRobot end-of-arm tooling (EoAT). The One System Solution has been newly expanded to include integration with robots from ABB Robotics and Hanwha Precision Machinery. Now, users of those robots can take advantage of the unified mechanical and electrical interface of any OnRobot product, for easier integration and faster ROI. While the Soft Gripper is ideal for food and beverage applications, it also provides flexible, delicate gripping for manufacturing and packaging. Soft Gripper Features: Up to 2.2kg payload based on shape, softness and friction of items to be handled Grip dimensions ranging from 10mm-118mm depending on cup used FDA certification Flexible, interchangeable silicon cups Ideal handling for delicate objects and irregular shapes No need […]

New Lincoln University Council members bring wealth of experience to the table

Co-chair of Silver Fern Farms Limited and Chair of Farmlands Co-operative, Rob Hewett (pictured), and Ecological Economist, Dr Marjan van den Belt, have joined the Lincoln University Council. Mr Hewett brings extensive governance experience in the agricultural and agribusiness sectors to the role, while Dr van den Belt has 25 years combined experience of knowledge brokering and entrepreneurship in research, teaching and consulting across multiple sectors. Silver Fern Farms is New Zealand’s largest meat processor and exporter, exporting to over 60 countries globally. Mr Hewett is also Director, immediate past-Chair, and a shareholder of Silver Fern Farms Co-operative Limited, which is owned by 16,000 farmer shareholders and supplies sheep meat, beef and venison to Silver Fern Farms Limited. He is also the Chair of Farmlands Cooperative Society, New Zealand’s largest diversified rural supplies business with 70,000 farmer shareholders, and a Director of T&G Global Ltd, an Auckland based, globally focused pipfruit and vegetable growing and import-export business. He has governance roles in the energy sector, as a Director for Pioneer Energy Limited, a diversified energy company with generating assets across wind, hydro, biomass, thermal and gas throughout New Zealand. Mr Hewett also has experience in sustainable ventures, owning a 960ha carbon-zero sheep and beef breeding and finishing farm with significant forestry and wind farm interests in Manuka Gorge, South Otago, since 2002. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Commerce from Lincoln University. Dr van den Belt has a life-long passion for ecological sustainability, social and cultural fairness and innovative economic solutions. This is reflected in a unique combination of academic qualifications, inter/trans-disciplinary research, and management and governance experience. A strategic partner with Terra Moana Ltd, she seeks to serve communities of people and organisations who critically engage with a vision for a regenerative society through enterprise, board positions, facilitation, […]

Food production and exporting remains essential

— ExportNZ says there is no reason for concern about food manufacturing and exporting during the Covid-19 crisis. Concerns are being expressed on talkback and social media about food manufacturers and food exporters continuing to operate during the lockdown. But ExportNZ Executive Director Catherine Beard says supplying food is an essential activity, and all governments around the world – including New Zealand – are prioritising food production, importing and exporting. “New Zealand is part of a global food supply chain which would be disrupted if we started putting restrictions on food exports,” Catherine Beard said. “Food exports are going to help New Zealand weather this economic storm. 70-80% of goods exports are food-related and they are essential to our economy. “Nor is there cause for concern about working conditions, as food manufacturing businesses are already highly regulated and sanitised environments. “Employers will be taking extra care about working conditions to keep employees safe, in line with Government recommendations for safe working conditions in a Covid19 situation. “Any employee with safety concerns should talk to their employer. Employers don’t want sick workers coming to work with even a cold. Employers will be highly vigilant around the safety of their workers as they don’t want to risk a shut down.”

Low emissions pork sector needs to be considered separately

Proposed reforms to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) must recognise that New Zealand pig farming produces very low emissions. Pig farming currently contributes just 0.2 per cent of New Zealand’s total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) agricultural emissions but pigs have been included in the proposal to price emissions at a farm level. “The research and analysis that has been done to make the decision on pricing agricultural emissions has been based on other farming systems,” says NZPork General Manager David Baines. “However, pigs have monogastric digestive systems, like people, so they naturally produce much lower methane emissions than ruminant animals like cattle or sheep. “Our industry is much smaller, our emissions are comparatively minimal, and our methods of farming are very different. Our farmers are also competing with cheaper imported pork products, which is placing pressure on the industry. “Decisions on emissions pricing need to avoid disproportionately impacting pig farmers by including them in a system that wasn’t designed for them.” NZPork is calling for the Government to consider the impacts of emissions pricing on the pork sector, and to investigate alternative options for supporting emissions reductions. “There is real potential for the pork industry, as a naturally low emission animal protein, to play a valuable role in feeding New Zealanders in our future low emissions economy,” says Mr Baines. “In order to do that, pig farmers need to participate in a system that is fair to them, will help to reduce emissions and will not disproportionately impact them.” Despite already being a low emission sector, pig farmers are committed to reducing GHG emissions. “We are focused on helping our farmers understand the emissions profile of their farm, understand options for emissions reductions at the farm level and supporting them to implement mitigation measures to reduce emissions.”

«‹ 14 15 16 17 ›»

News Ticker

Analysis