Supermarkets under the spotlight. The Commerce Commission this week released a hard-hitting draft report on competition in the retail grocery sector, with supermarkets not coming out of it well. The Commission found problems and they’re mainly with the structure of the market. In competitive terms the major retailers, Woolworths NZ and Foodstuffs, are a duopoly […]
Politics
New drive for strong wool profitability gaining impetus, Feds says
New Zealand’s wool industry is entering an exciting new era of collaboration, innovation and consumer-focus to deliver game changing profitability to farmers, William Beetham says. “We’re really pleased to see industry players work together to end fragmentation and concentrate on driving extra value from the superior attributes we all know that strong wool entails,” the […]
Financers starting to ask tough sustainability questions
The government and consumers of food and fibre products aren’t the only ones asking farmers about environmental and social sustainability. Increasingly, bankers and financers want to know too. Dean Spicer, ANZ’s Head of Sustainable Finance, told farmers and growers at the Primary Industries NZ Summit that a paradigm shift is underway on the way business […]
Are we barking at deaf sheep?
By Leigh Catley, GM Communications, Federated Farmers Groundswell’s tractor and tradie national protest on July 16 left many Federated Farmers members asking … what happens next? Did anyone actually hear the farmers’ messages, or are the folks in government circles in Wellington too much like deaf sheep to pick up on what a 50-town protest […]
Strong Wool group goes out to market with ‘category disruptor’ opportunities
Finding entrepreneurs and companies here or offshore to spearhead branded product campaigns in the United States is the next strand of SWAG’s workplan. When the Strong Wool Action Group’s CEO Andy Caughey updated Federated Farmers Meat & Wool delegates in March, he described the in-depth US consumer research SWAG had commissioned from San Francisco-based design-led […]
Economic Week – July 23
GDT down again. Dairy prices slipped again at this week’s Global Dairy Trade auction, its seventh consecutive fall stretching back three over three months. Overall, the GDT Price Index was down 2.9% compared to the previous auction a fortnight ago. Whole milk powder, by far the biggest traded by volume, was down 3.8%, while skim […]
Economic Week – July 16
Stimulus reduced. The Reserve Bank caused ripples this week with its decision to wind back on its extraordinary monetary stimulus. Although it kept its Official Cash Rate on hold at 0.25%, the Reserve Bank announced it would be ceasing its programme of large scale asset purchases from 23 July 2021, almost a year ahead of […]
Farmer frustration is boiling over
Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard says he’s not surprised frustration and anger about the deluge of new regulations and costs from central government is spilling over into protest meetings. On Friday farmers in a number of districts around New Zealand are rounding up dog teams and firing up utes and tractors to head into their […]
Economic Week – July 9
by Nick Clark, Federated Farmers Manager General Policy Commodity prices rise but freight issues biting June saw commodity prices continue to rise to new record highs, but freight costs and delays are also intensifying, according to the monthly ANZ Commodity Price Index. The World Commodity Price Index was up 0.8% June, taking the year-on-year […]
Economic Week – July 2
Rural confidence rises. Strong agricultural commodity prices and a positive outlook for them have driven a third consecutive lift in New Zealand farmer confidence, according to Rabobank’s latest Rural Confidence Survey. After 10 consecutive negative surveys, farmer confidence returned to net positive territory in the March 2021 quarter, with more farmers optimistic than pessimistic in […]