Latest news with #dairy
RNZ News
7 hours ago
- Business
- RNZ News
A big, new Waikato butter factory isn't expected to cut prices
File photo. Photo: Sorin Gheorghita for Unsplash The country's newest butter plant is not expected to lower soaring prices at the supermarket checkout. Open Country Dairy is spreading into the butter market, with the new plant in Matamata on track to open in two months' time. The country's second largest milk processor will export its product to North America, Japan, South East Asia, the Middle East, the UK and Europe. Chief executive Mark de Lautour said around 20,000 tonnes of butter each year will be sold to the global market. "We're selling it globally and that's where the best returns are rather than the domestic market," he said. "Globally there is huge demand and huge value put on natural fats around the world at the moment." He said while it's unfortunate consumers locally are paying the high global price, there is a spin off for the country's trade. "The good thing is that export earnings for New Zealand are increasing because of it." Open Country's new plant is located at its Waharoa site beside its existing cheese factory. Half of the butter produced will be in small retail packets and the other half will be bulk 25kg cartons for commercial use. "The plant is commissioning now and we're looking to make our first commercial butter this week really from the plant," he said. "The official opening is going to be in a couple of of months when everything is settled. "There's a large number of people in white clothing running around learning to use the new equipment." The downstream impact of the capital investment will also see new jobs in the cool store and on the distribution side of the supply chain. Stats NZ showed a 500 gram block of butter now costs $8.60, up 46 percent in just the past year. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
7 hours ago
- Business
- RNZ News
NZers will need to deal with high butter prices for longer
food money 22 minutes ago A dairy analyst says New Zealanders will have to put up with high butter prices for the time being, until commodity prices and consumer demand subsides. Rabobank senior dairy analyst Michael Harvey spoke to Charlotte Cook. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
a day ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Nicola Willis to ask Fonterra about high price of butter
Finance Minister Nicola Willis. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver Finance Minister Nicola Willis will be asking Fonterra about the high retail price of butter in New Zealand. Willis told First Up it didn't seem quite right that butter seemed to be cheaper in Australian supermarkets. The price of a block of butter is now 120 percent higher than it was a decade ago, Stats NZ says. In the year to June it was up 46.5 percent to $8.60 for a 500g block . At her regular meeting with the dairy co-operative this week she would be discussing what gets added to the cost by retail brands, including Fonterra's Anchor, and at the wholesale level. "My frustration has been when you sometimes go on to an Australian supermarket website and see that butter appears to be cheaper there than in New Zealand, that doesn't seem quite right. So that's exactly the conversation I want to have." "They'll have the opportunity to set out their case." It was well understood the main driver of prices for dairy products was international demand and pricing, Willis said. "But competition at the retail level does seem to have an effect on price, because organisations like Costco choose to have a really low price point on that product to get people in the door and the ultimate winner of all of that is the Kiwi shopper. "So I'm talking to Fonterra about what they're seeing in terms of the supermarket pricing behaviour, what the margins are." In May, Costco Auckland's special pricing saw queues out the door . Federated Farmers dairy chair Karl Dean has urged retailers to lower prices quickly when costs go down, and said there was probably very little Fonterra itself could do . "To put in it in perspective, there hasn't been any new players onto the domestic market in the last 10 years in terms of butter, other than the likes of Westgold - Westland have got their very premium product," he told Morning Report last week.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Interested tenant farmers visit Sark dairy as search rolls on
Three interested parties have come forward to run Sark Dairy Farm after its last milking cows were moved off the tenants Jason and Katherine Salisbury formally left the farm to return to the UK in March - but the search for a new tenant continues. Maj Christopher Beaumont, chairman of Sark Dairy Trust, said the notice period to replace the dairy farm's tenants "proved much too short in hindsight", but said three candidates had shown an Beaumont, who is also Sark's Seigneur, said the island should be "striving" to look after itself when it came to dairy production. Yoghurts, ice cream, butter He added: "That's what we should all be striving to be, I think, be as sustainable as we can."Making sure that we can produce as much product as we consume locally has to be a good thing to do."He said two of the interested candidates had visited the site, with the third expected to visit soon."I am looking forward to having more sort of Sark product available."Artisan cheeses, yoghurts, ice cream, butter." He added: "I'm really looking forward to seeing that back in production."The chairman said prospective farmers had been asked how they would be able to incorporate an apprenticeship scheme to support the farm in the future.
Zawya
2 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Blocked in Kenya, Brookside Uganda finds lifeline in Algeria
The Ugandan authorities have secured an export window for Brookside Dairy Uganda, granting the company access to the Algerian milk powder market as it recovers from trade restrictions imposed by neighbouring Kenya. Brookside Uganda is one of four local manufacturers selected by the Algerian government and private importers to supply powdered milk. The others are Pearl Dairies (a subsidiary of Mauritius-based Maziwa), Amos Dairies, and Bennifoods. Bennifoods, the latest entrant into Uganda's dairy industry, operates a plant in Lyantonde District, about 200km southwest of Kampala. Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) in March 2023 blocked Brookside Uganda's products from the Kenyan market. To cushion the firm, Ugandan dairy authorities granted it a three-month exclusive window (May to July 2025) to export to Algeria.'Brookside had accumulated stock due to restricted access to the Kenyan market. We agreed to allocate them the first export slot to Algeria,' said Samson Akankiza, Commissioner for Dairy Development and Production. According to Mr Akankiza, Pearl Dairies will take up the next three-month window beginning in August, followed by Amos Dairies and Bennifoods. The Moroccan dairy market, estimated at $1.39 billion in 2024, is projected to reach $1.69 billion by 2030. The $500 million Algerian milk market presents Uganda with a valuable alternative while access to the Kenyan market remains blocked. The KDB has withheld milk import permits from Brookside Uganda for over 800 days, effectively shutting the brand out, despite Ugandan labels such as Lato and Dairy Top enjoying free market access in Kenya. Brookside Dairy Uganda, a subsidiary of Kenya-based Brookside Dairy, has decried the restrictions as unfair. Industry insiders suggest the ban may be politically motivated and possibly tied to tensions between former President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose family holds a majority stake in Brookside, and his successor William Ruto. © Copyright 2022 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
