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Speaker 1: Alliance Meatworks are set to close it's Smithfield plant and

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Speaker 1: Timadou by the end of the year, resulting in the

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Speaker 1: loss of about six hundred jobs. It's a huge loss

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Speaker 1: for the sector and we need plants like it to

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Speaker 1: process our meats. Dan Bolton is the Silver Fir and

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Speaker 1: Farms chief executives with me this morning. Dan, Good morning, Dan,

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Speaker 1: can you hear me right there?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Fine, Oh there we.

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Speaker 1: Go, Dan, Welcome to the show. Good to have you on.

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Speaker 1: Is this a worry when we hear about these closures?

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Speaker 2: Clearly a worry when there's many job losses there and

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Speaker 2: devastating for the people of the Timory community. You know, Ryan,

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Speaker 2: that's extually my hometown and Silver and Farms we have

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Speaker 2: our own workforce and Timory, so I know how much

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Speaker 2: the locals are hurting after this announcement right now.

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Speaker 1: Is this because our stock is reducing in the you know,

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Speaker 1: we don't need the capacity at these meatworks anymore or

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Speaker 1: what's going on here?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. So she numbers have been declining

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Speaker 2: and you know, our farmers, particularly sheep farmers, have had

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Speaker 2: some better land news options in front of them, as

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Speaker 2: you know, that's predominantly been linked to the settings that

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Speaker 2: have allowed pine trees to be planted on productive sheep

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Speaker 2: country in you couple that with probably eighteen months of

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Speaker 2: relatively depressed land export returns and that's just accelerated that change.

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Speaker 2: So land news change is a big part of it.

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Speaker 2: But you know, civil food and farms, we don't accept

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Speaker 2: that trend will continue. We feel there's an excellent future

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Speaker 2: demand for New Zealand produced, particularly sustainable produced protein, and

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Speaker 2: that includes our land. But as an industry, you know,

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Speaker 2: we're going to have to evolve and be innovative to

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Speaker 2: ensure we can capture that. And you know, in our sheep,

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Speaker 2: beef and venison, farmers deserve to thrive. But to do that,

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Speaker 2: they're going to need a really strong and efficient and

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Speaker 2: viable processing sector and that's going to require investment, and

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Speaker 2: then it requires investment in our processing facilities. But I

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Speaker 2: think what we're seeing at the moment is just a

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Speaker 2: realignment of processing capacity versus the available available land numbers.

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Speaker 2: And I guess when you've got too much capacity, there

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Speaker 2: needs to be an adjustment because a large, expensive infrastructure

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Speaker 2: to run. In history shows that industries had to adapt

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Speaker 2: over time to make sure we have an efficient network.

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Speaker 1: Plus a big labor because so it would Silver Firm's

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Speaker 1: Silver Firm potentially look at investing in somewhere like well

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Speaker 1: more in some way, like to try and create more

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Speaker 1: capacity there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or we already have a large process and capacity.

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Speaker 2: But I think you know, is there you know, I

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Speaker 2: think the question you're asking is is there a challenge

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Speaker 2: there for farmers in that region. I think they're still

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Speaker 2: sufficient capacity across that wider south canabary Otago Canterbury region,

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Speaker 2: So I don't think there's going to be a challenge

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Speaker 2: there for farmers to get the animals processed in that

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Speaker 2: particular area For the season ahead.

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Speaker 1: How's the outlook looking. We're expecting farm gate prices from

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Speaker 1: processes and exporters soon. How how are things tracking?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, actually be looking really good, you know, and particularly

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Speaker 2: off the demand and the supply shortage up into the USA,

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Speaker 2: but also other key markets are performing well Japan, Korea,

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Speaker 2: Europe and even China on chilled beef items is looking

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Speaker 2: really positive. And I think you know, today all beef

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Speaker 2: farm gate pricings that record high, so not a lot

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Speaker 2: to complain about there, and even prime beef is looking

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Speaker 2: pretty good. So we're seeing beef pricing remain firm as

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Speaker 2: we move into twenty twenty five and probably sitting about

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Speaker 2: seventy cents to a dollar above the five year average,

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Speaker 2: and I think farmers will be pretty happy with that outcome.

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Speaker 2: For lamb farmers, you know, and that's clearly pricing hasn't

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Speaker 2: been where it's needed to be and still sitting below

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Speaker 2: the five year average. But you know that's been driven

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Speaker 2: by an oversupply out of Australia with them at record

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Speaker 2: production level. So but that said, we're seeing that for

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Speaker 2: supply position for casts. Even we're actually seeing some shortages

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Speaker 2: now on lambs up in the UK and EU market

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Speaker 2: said some pretty favorable price signals as we head into

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. So we're seeing lamp pricing aspect to

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Speaker 2: more sustainable levels for our farmers, which is exactly the

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Speaker 2: news after and believe it or not, we're actually getting

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Speaker 2: some outstanding pricing on certain items such as lamb ranks

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Speaker 2: and lamb lloyans that we all love. But unfortunately there's

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Speaker 2: the whole, the whole animal we need to sell. We've

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Speaker 2: sort of got to get the rest of the carcass

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Speaker 2: pricing back up to where it needs to be, and

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Speaker 2: China's going to play an important part of it, and

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Speaker 2: we're getting some green shoots coming out of China as well.

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Speaker 2: So it's on heading in the right direction, but still

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Speaker 2: a little bit more to go for our lamb Farmer's good.

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Speaker 1: Nice to finish on some positive news. Dan, Thank you

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Speaker 1: very much for your time this morning. It's Dan Bolton's

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Speaker 1: silver Fern Farms chief executive.

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Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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