NZ food and beverage sector adding value to volume

A new report on New Zealand’s food and beverage export sector shows that the sector is successfully achieving growth by investing in added value products and moving up the value chain.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy today released the 2015 edition of the Investor’s Guide to the New Zealand Food and Beverage Industry which shows increasing levels of investment in product diversification and branded high value consumer products.

A key focus of the report is on the 23 emerging high value categories, which now produce a total of $3 billion of exports per annum and have grown at 12 per cent a year over the past decade.

“New Zealand’s food and beverage sector is in the middle of an exciting period of growth,” says Mr Joyce. “Goods with annual export figures between $100-$200 million include chocolate, UHT milk, biscuits, avocadoes, soft drink and beef jerky, between $200-$300 million include pet food and honey, mussels $312 million, and $455 million in infant formula.

“The report also shows that recent investment by the sector has largely gone into further processing, retail products, and new high value categories.” Mr Joyce says

The report profiles the top 100 New Zealand food and beverage firms, which collectively generate $51 billion in revenue a year.

Mr Guy noted that dairy manufacturers have invested around $1.3 billion in the past four years in new plants that produce UHT milk, infant formula, mozzarella cheese, lactoferin and hydrolysed protein.

“Much of this is retail product, food service and high value ingredients – all of it is adding value to the basic raw material,” Mr Guy says.

“Food and beverage continues to be vitally important for New Zealand and it’s crucial to achieving the Government’s target of increasing exports to 40 per cent of GDP by 2025.

“The sector’s increasingly diverse product categories provide major opportunities for further growth around regional New Zealand and for the Maori economy, such as with aquaculture in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, honey in Northland and nutraceuticals in Marlborough.”

“An important part of maintaining this growth story is attracting further investment into the value-added parts of the food and beverage sector, from both domestic and international investors, Mr Joyce said.  “The Government will continue to actively encourage more investment through the new New Zealand Investment Attraction Strategy and the Investment Stream of the Business Growth Agenda,” Mr Joyce says.

The Investor’s Guide to the New Zealand Food and Beverage Industry is part of the Food and Beverage Information Project and is available at http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/food-beverage/information-project

NB: The report is in US dollars, these figures have been converted to NZ dollars for the press release.