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Speaker 1: More evidence that the old farming sector is doing the

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Speaker 1: heavy economic lifting Headwaters farmers there behind Lumina LAMB are

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Speaker 1: the forecast of returns of twenty three to fifty per LAMB,

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Speaker 1: which is up sixty percent. They got strong growth in

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Speaker 1: newmarkets places like Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. Now Steve Brown's

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Speaker 1: the boss at Headwaters and Lumina, and as with us, Steve,

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Speaker 1: morning to.

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Speaker 2: You, good morning, Mike. Pleasy to be here.

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Speaker 1: Now Beef gets the headlines. But of course, is there

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Speaker 1: a good LAMB story And is the Lamb's story good

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Speaker 1: because it's you guys, or is LAMB just generally a

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Speaker 1: good news story.

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Speaker 2: It's a good question. I think LAMB is generally a

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Speaker 2: good news story. But we'd like to think that sort

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Speaker 2: of Headwaters and Lumina are leading the way as far

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Speaker 2: as global recognition. So the yeah, the outlook for LAMB

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Speaker 2: generally is strong, but certainly for Lumina it's locking really

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Speaker 2: positive just.

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Speaker 1: For people who don't follow this who are Lumina, who

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Speaker 1: are Headwaters.

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Speaker 2: So it's a great story that started about twenty years

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Speaker 2: ago with a group of fourteen farmers in Central Otago

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Speaker 2: in Southland who wanted to breed a different type of

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Speaker 2: sheep that had increased survivability, and over the years, what

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Speaker 2: they found breeding that sheep is it had higher levels

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Speaker 2: of Omega three and intramuscular fat, which made it a

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Speaker 2: great eating lamb as well. And what we've found and

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Speaker 2: developed as a feeding regime where the lambs are fed

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Speaker 2: on chickory for thirty five days and that helps the

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Speaker 2: eating quality and provides a more consistent and high quality

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Speaker 2: eating experience for consumers. And that's now one hundred farms

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Speaker 2: around New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic. So you're the quality story, aren't you. You're it

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter. There will always be people who will be

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Speaker 1: prepared to pay extra for something that's good.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly it. So I think where these farmers wanted

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Speaker 2: it originally was they were tired of sort of seeing

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Speaker 2: the lambs leaves the farm and not knowing where they went,

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Speaker 2: and they wanted to be connected to the market. So

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Speaker 2: the strength of the brand and the lumin of brand

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Speaker 2: is really that strong connection to international markets and a

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Speaker 2: select group of distributors who target premium restaurants Mitchellin Star

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Speaker 2: restaurants and diners that want that exceptional lamb meeting experience.

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Speaker 1: I was going to ask about that, how much of

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Speaker 1: it ends up in a restaurant versus in a supermarket.

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Speaker 2: It's virtually one hundred percent into food service and restaurants.

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Speaker 2: So we trial. I think a few of our distributors

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Speaker 2: and markets look to test the retail market, but really

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Speaker 2: it's the feedback from the chefs that drives enthusiasm from

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Speaker 2: the farmers or for the farmers, and that feedback has

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Speaker 2: been well recognized.

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Speaker 1: What's your potential do you think?

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Speaker 2: Yes, twenty years and we still call ourselves a startup.

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Speaker 2: We've gone from fifty thousand lambs in twenty twenty one

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Speaker 2: to a quarter of a million this year, and in

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Speaker 2: a declining flock in New Zealand, we'd like to think

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Speaker 2: that we've got the potential to grow to a million

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Speaker 2: lambs and help sort of introduce the will to this

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Speaker 2: fantastic protein that we produce.

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Speaker 1: How big of the Sound East, well, how big will

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Speaker 1: they be?

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Speaker 2: The feedback's being really positive, and we are only in

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Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia a wee bit and do buy at the moment,

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Speaker 2: but that whole Middle East is you know, there's a

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Speaker 2: lot of wealth and the big lamb eaters. So that's

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Speaker 2: a great opportunity. But even in the UK and Europe

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Speaker 2: there is opportunities for Lumina where they've got Welsh, Scottish,

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Speaker 2: Irish lamb and you know, we want to take them

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Speaker 2: head on and show them what quality lamb looks like.

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Speaker 1: Great story well and Steve appreciate it very much. Dee Brown,

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Speaker 1: who's the CEO of Headwaters and Luminas, So there it is.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can't argue with sixty percent increase with

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Speaker 1: potential upside and people will buy quality when it's available

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Speaker 1: to them. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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