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 (00:01):
The Rural Report on hither du for see Allen.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Dree, Jamie MacKaye, hosts of the Countries with us Allo
Jamie got I hear that right. How's it looking for
sheep and beef?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
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

(00:35):
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 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 in

(00:56):
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 thirty

(01:17):
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 me today on my show, All
season average lamb prices forecast to be one hundred and

(01:40):
eighty dollars, beef two thousand dollars. Heather, that's why your
steaks are so expensive.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
And now talk to me about the food wastage because
the steaks are so expensive, so we waste less of them.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Well, I wouldn't waste any of my steak, I fand
as well. Good? Yeah, absolutely, ye should wow. 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

(02:16):
two percent and twenty twenty three. That equates to three
billion dollars per annum we're wasting and food. Interestingly, the
latest survey found that the average household food spend 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

(02:38):
since then, so effectively households are having to cut back
on the amount of food they buy. What really interested me, Heather,
is when you look at the age demographics gen Z.
That's the nineteen ninety seven onwards residents. They waste seventeen
point eight percent of their food, but back in twenty

(02:59):
twenty two they waste did twenty eight point two percent
of their food. It gets better as you go through
the generations. The baby boomers, of course, Heather, 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

(03:21):
off by city friends for this one. Urban dwellers waste
more than their frugal rural counterparts. Urban dwellers twelve point
four percent of their food. That's you, heather, people from
a farm like me seven point eight percent.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Tell me again, what was the gen Z is currently wasting?

Speaker 3 (03:35):
How much they're currently wasting seventeen point eight percent before
and why beforehand they were wasting and twenty twenty two,
three years ago, twenty eight point two percent.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
That's a third of their food, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
I know, Well, they're at the disposable generation gen why
Gen Why that's the millennials. Yeah, eighteen eighty one and
nineteen eighty one, ninety ninety six, fourteen point one Gen X.
They're getting more sensible ten point four. But once again,
you know the baby boom was what a great number?
Six point eight.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Eat it all up, Thank you very much, Jamie, appreciate it.
Jamie McKay, host of the Country Gens twenty seven, like,
think about that. That's a food of their food, right,
So they go and they spend one hundred bucks of
the grub who spends one hundred bucks at the supermarket.
Let's there's one hundred 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 the bottom of the fridge. You know what

(04:28):
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 bot
and aise is what you do with it.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
The little black bit just kind of cools off. You know,
I bet they find that they go the carrots a
bit web lay. We're not going to ate that. You
know what I ate the other day yesterday for lunch ate.
Something was cocked on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
That's right. It was in the fridge for a week.
That's right. Guts of steel people.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
That's what happens when you eat all the food and
you don't worry about it. Never makes your sick.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
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