ANZCO Foods Market Update - March 2025

Global markets for beef and lamb continue to show signs of incremental improvements on the back of tight supply across most beef and sheepmeat industries.

Firstly, just a quick thanks to those farmers who came by the ANZCO Foods tent at the Wānaka show last weekend. It was another great event with typically good Wānaka weather, and it provided us with an opportunity to hear firsthand how your businesses are tracking and to also continue to build awareness of ANZCO Foods across the wider general public.

The ANZCO Foods team also had a great weekend in Taupō earlier this month for ANZCO Foods IRONMAN New Zealand. Huge congratulations to Wade McRae, Kieran Hickman, Campbell Peters, and Chris Thwaites, our farmers who raced for ANZCO Foods with distinction. Hopefully they will spread the word across their friends and farming networks about their experience, as we would love to see more of you taking on the challenge and joining us in March 2026. ANZCO Foods IRONMAN New Zealand is a great event and a huge personal accomplishment for all those who take part. It also provides us with a platform to talk about nutrition and good health and the role New Zealand's finest beef and lamb can play in achieving those outcomes, not just for athletes but for all New Zealanders.

On the market side of things, it’s been encouraging to see some firming in prices and a growing appetite from our customers in China around securing supply. Our team on the ground gets the sense there’s a more positive sentiment within our Chinese customer base, and we’re hopeful this can continue to build during the next few months. China is a critical market for our industry, and while we’re fortunate to have enough market diversification to navigate economic downturns like those we've experienced in China in the past 12 months, it’s essential for the industry that China thrives, not merely survives. The Chinese government appears committed to establishing a policy framework that helps to rebuild consumer confidence. Currently, most of the positive momentum in China is driven more by the supply side than by consumption. This month, the Chinese government took action by suspending a number of beef plants in South America and there's an expectation they will do the same for a number of US beef exporters. The rationale is different for both – the South American move is linked to ongoing concerns being expressed by the local industry over the impact of large volumes of South American beef entering the Chinese market, which they argue has an adverse impact on them, while the potential move against US supply is directly linked to the geopolitical uncertainty stemming from President Trump's aggressive trade policy agenda.

Japan has been the other market that has been underwhelming for us for quite some time. With another winter now behind them, we’re starting to see some seasonal uplift in consumption and our lamb customers in particular are looking ahead to better times and securing supply to meet this consumption growth. We’ve seen a fair bit of disruption in terms of shipping out of Australia in the past couple of weeks related to the cyclone that hit much of Queensland and NSW that left many of our Japanese customers short on expected arrivals out of their Australian chilled lamb suppliers. This has created some short-term opportunity for our ANZCO Foods sales team in Tokyo, which we are taking advantage of, subject to our relatively tight supply position and our own supply chain challenges related to shipping reliability.

There’s been no change in the UK or Europe, with tight domestic supply on lamb and beef keeping prices firm and interest in supply out of New Zealand high. We’re now into the month of Ramadan, which increases consumption for lamb, particularly on the continent, which is also helping in terms of the number of inquiries our sales office is receiving. In the UK, our immediate focus is on supply chains as we look to get all our lamb into market on time and with sufficient shelf life to meet the tight requirements of our retail partners as they prepare for the peak demand period heading into Easter. Increasingly, our UK business is focused on supplying frozen lamb rather than chilled, simply because of the ongoing challenges we face around shipping timeliness and overall supply chain reliability. This change has benefited our retailers and us in terms of managing risk while not sacrificing product quality or the eating experience for British consumers, with New Zealand lamb still a firm family favourite at this time of the year.

The domestic market for beef and lamb has also been strong as New Zealand retailers ramp up for Easter consumption and as they recognise the challenging position that the industry is in right now around livestock supply. We’ve locked in good volumes of lamb legs and shoulders into the supermarket trade at competitive prices, so hopefully you’ll see plenty of ANZCO Foods branded product on the shelf in the weeks ahead.

North America remains the leading light in terms of global markets and is really setting the benchmark, particularly on beef. The industry fundamentals continue to show that cattle numbers are tightening and that the long-awaited rebuild of the national herd is just around the corner. Prices continue to show slow but steady upside and our own tight position around livestock means we’re able to challenge our customers perhaps more bravely than normal. With a favourable exchange rate, revenue we’re capturing from this market continues to underpin our wider business performance and it's certainly helping to offset the relatively high cost we’re paying for livestock this season, which is obviously good news for you and our wider supply base.

The elephant in the room however, continues to be the massive level of volatility and uncertainty surrounding the political agenda in the US. You’ll understand things seem to be changing almost daily at the moment and following my comments last month, we continue to watch closely how the US trade and agricultural policy agenda and wider economic impacts are evolving. I would like to think that given the overall global supply position for beef that, regardless of the impact President Trump's actions and policies may have in the short term on US economic growth or consumer confidence, we’ll continue to see robust demand for our beef and lamb from our US based customers. Despite an optimistic ‘glass-half-full’ view, it's certainly an added variable that we would prefer not to have in the mix.

In summary, the short-term outlook feels relatively positive and looking out further, there seems to be no reason why we cannot maintain this momentum based on global supply positions, particularly in the beef market. Lamb is more of a niche business when you consider its position in the broader protein sector, but it too is performing well, and with potentially systemic issues in lamb industries such as the UK and Europe plus a glimmer of hope from China, we should remain upbeat; famous last words of course! Let’s see where the world is at this time next month.