Jamie Mackay: The Country host on Beef + Lamb NZ highlighting incoming headwinds in new report

New Zealand red meat prices are at record levels and are forecast to remain strong throughout the coming year, despite concerns about inflation.

Board chair Kate Acland says the outlook is positive, with tight global supply set to keep demand high.

The Country's Jamie Mackay explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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The Rural Report on Hither Duper see Alan Drei.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Jamie MacKaye hosts of the Countries with Us. Hello, Jamie cat,
I hear that right. How's it looking for sheep and Beef?

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Pretty good? Actually, Beef and Lamb New Zealand have come
out with their new season outlook, and even despite Trump's tariffs,
robust international demand from the likes of the US, they're
still eating as many burghers as we can poke their way.
Europe and the UK, especially with those FTAs, are going
really well for US, and even despite falling stock numbers
and lower export volumes, red meat exports are expected to

(00:51):
rise by one point four billion dollars to ten point
five billion all up for the twenty four twenty five season.
We're also being helped by our lower forecast sheep exports
out of Australia, one of our main competitors when it
comes to profitability. These are interesting numbers. Twenty three to
twenty four, the season before the one we've just been

(01:12):
in was one of the toughest since the GFC listen
to this. Your average sheep farmer made a profit before tax,
and they wouldn't have been paying much tax on this
profit of nineteen thousand dollars. Forty percent, the sheep and
beef farms were running at a loss. Well, that's turned
around dramatically. In twenty four to twenty five the season,
we're just about to finish average profitability one hundred and

(01:33):
thirty eight thousand, six hundred. Next season it's forecast to
go to one hundred and sixty six thousand, five hundred.
Minds you, you've got several million dollars in many cases
invested in these properties, so you would need a return
of that or better. Perhaps the interesting point Kate Acklin
made when she was chatting to meet today on My show.
All season average lamb prices forecast to be one hundred

(01:57):
and eighty dollars, beef two thousand dollars. Heather, that's why
your steaks are so expensive.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
And now talk to me about the food wastage because
the stakes are so expensive, was less of them?

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, I wouldn't waste any of my stake I found
as well.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Good? Yeah, absolutely, ye should.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well absolutely look Rabobank, they've moved the survey to every
two years now with the food charity Key we Harvest
and they're saying, I mean, the food waste numbers are
still pretty bad when you think about it. We're only
wasting ten point nine percent of our food now, that's
a drop from twelve point two percent and twenty twenty three.
That equates to three billion dollars per annum we're wasting

(02:39):
and food. Interestingly, the latest survey found that the average
household food spends and this shows you just how tired
it is for some families was only two dollars more
than it was in twenty twenty three, and we've had
quite huge food inflation since then, so effectively, households are
having to cut back on the amount of food they buy.

(03:01):
What really interested me, Heather, is when you look at
the age demographics gens. That's the nineteen ninety seven onwards residents,
they wasted seventeen point eight percent of their food, but
back in twenty twenty two they wasted twenty eight point
two percent of their food. It gets better as you
go through the generations. The baby boomers, of course, Heather,

(03:23):
the lucky generation leading the charge. They're only wasting six
point eight percent of their food. And then when you'd
split it between males and females, not surprisingly males waste
more than females, and not surprisingly urban dwellers. And I'll
get told off by city friends for this one. Urban
dwellers wastes more than their frugal rural counterparits urban dweller's

(03:44):
twelve point four percent of their food. That's you, Heather,
people from a farm like me, seven point eight percent.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Tell me again, what was the gen Z is currently wasting?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
How much they're currently wasting? Seventeen point eight percent?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Before why?

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Beforehand they were wasting and twenty twenty two, three years ago,
twenty eight point two percent.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
That's a third of their food, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
I know, well, they're at the disposable generation, Jen Why
gen Why that's the millennials. Yeah, eighteen eighty one and
nineteen eighty one to ninety ninety six, fourteen point one
Gen X. They're getting more sensible ten point four. But
once again, you know the baby boomers, what a great number?
Six point eight.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, that's right. Eat it all up, Thank you very much,
Jamie appreciated. Jamie McKay, host of the Country Genes twenty
seven like think about that. That's a third of their food. Right,
So they go and they spend one hundred bucks of
the grub. Who spends on hundred bucks at the supermarket.
Let's there's one hundred and fifty bucks at the supermarket.
Fifty bucks of that is going in the bin because
they can't be bothered finding something to do with the
black carrots at bottom of the fridge. You know what

(04:45):
I did with the black carrots to the bottom of
the fridge. Well, they were just a little bit black. Again,
they weren't that black. I mean like, it wasn't like
dangerously black. I just grated them into a good bol
and aise is what you do with it, you know,
the local little black bit just kind of cools off.
You know, I bet they find that they go the
carrots a bit wob lay. We're not going to ate that.
Do you know what I ate the other day? Yesterday
for lunch ate. Something was cocked on Tuesday. That's right.

(05:08):
It was in the fridge for a week, that's right,
got of steel people. That's what happens when you eat
all the food and you don't worry about it. It never
makes your sick.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
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