The red meat industry is facing a new challenge: whether it can co-operate long enough to roll out a new strategy aimed at almost doubling its export earnings by 2025.
The strategy launched at Parliament on Wednesday night is a joint initiative by the Meat Industry Association and Beef + Lamb New Zealand, based on a detailed analysis by Deloitte.
The meat industry is currently New Zealand's second biggest exporter earner behind dairying, at almost $8 billion per year.
It aims to increase that to $14 billion by focusing on three areas. They are:
Better co-ordination between exporters in markets
Shifting the focus of competition from buying stock at the farm gate to off-shore competitors
Improving productivity at all stages of the supply chain.
Beef + Lamb chair Mike Petersen says the strategy report clearly shows there are significant profit gains to be made at every stage of red meat's journey from the farm to the market place.
The Meat Industry Association says co-operation is the key. Chair Bill Falconer says he's confident there's more impetus for that now.
Other views
Meat companies are voicing their support.
Alliance chief executive Grant Cuff feels the new strategy could have more momentum than previous attempts to get a more cohesive industry.
Silver Fern Farm's chief executive Keith Cooper also thinks the new strategy has more going for it because it provides a clear framework for companies and farmers to make their own decisions about how they'll apply it.
Agriculture Minister David Carter says the latest strategy is different to all the reports that have gone before, because the industry itself has led it.
However, Labour has dismissed it as a 'cull cow' - a product of past production, but offering little hope for the future.
Agriculture spokesperson Damien O'Connor says it will not resolve old issues such as competition for supply, inefficient plant use and price under-cutting in the market place.
