Dawn Meats NZ deal is a 'win-win for Irish farmers' - chief executive
Dawn Meats €132 million 'strategic partnership' with Alliance Group, in New Zealand is a "win-win for Irish farmers" according to the chief executive of the Irish company.
Niall Browne, the chief executive of Dawn Meats, told Agriland that as a result of the partnership deal Dawn "now has a better position on the global stage for sales".
"Alliance is a very big player into Asia, China, North America, Canada, and that will allow doors to be open for Irish and British product.
"It is a two way street," Browne added.
Alliance describes itself as "New Zealand's only 100% farmer-owned red meat co-operative".
Its shareholders voted on Monday (October 20) to back a new partnership with Dawn Meats which will see the Waterford-headquartered company acquire a 65% shareholding in Alliance Group, with farmer-shareholders retaining a 35% stake.
New Zealand
Speaking to Agriland from New Zealand, Dawn's chief executive said the partnership represents a "strategic investment" for the Irish company.
Browne said: "We're at a scale now in Ireland and the UK, where we can't grow much more.
"This business is a very similar business to our businesses being grass-based farming and English speaking and similar cultures.
"Obviously the farmers down here are on a bigger scale, but we see a lot of synergies with the dual hemisphere, with some of our customers who switch from Irish or British, and then they go into New Zealand for that part of the season where their spring lamb is available.
"So we can now offer customers year round supply and that will allow us to develop better relationships and more long term partnerships".
But some farm organisations have voiced concerns about Dawn's enthusiasm for this "year round supply".
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association (ICSA) has warned that "every extra shipment of New Zealand lamb going into EU and UK supermarkets means tougher competition for Irish producers".
ICSA sheep chair, Willie Shaw, added: “There’s only so much shelf space and only so much demand.
"If Dawn fills that space with New Zealand lamb when Irish farmers are selling, it will drive down prices here at home. That’s the reality.”
However, in response to these concerns Browne said that Alliance Group "is a much bigger business than just lamb".
"It's doing half a million cattle as well, it's doing 100,000 venison so you're only looking at one part of the business," he said.
Browne also added that some farm organisations have "never reached out to talk to us so that we could explain it to them".
"This is what happens in the trade anyway. It's just that we haven't been supplying it.
"They're going to the best in season, which is the spring lamb in New Zealand, while we are going into hoggett season, and we're not supplying those premium customers that want to bring lamb all year round," Browne added.
He said in relation to price the "meat market is not dictated by what farmers' pay in marts, five, seven, 12 months past".
"That's not how the actual meat market works.
"They're looking at it through one lens, but the global meat market is very dynamic.
"There's lots of trends that input into the pricing, and it's really a supply and demand and customer service parameters are the key ones," Browne added.
Dawn Meats
The "strategic partnership" between Dawn Meats and the Alliance Group is not the first time the Irish company has decided to dance with a co-op.
In 2017 it acquired 49% of beef supplier, Elivia, which at the time was 100% owned by the French co-op Terrena. Then in 2023 Dawn announced that it had decided to sell its minority shareholding in Elivia back to Terrena.
According to Dawn this was because its vision for the French market and its ambition for the future strategic direction of Elivia was "not aligned with that of our partner Terrena".
Niall Browne has stressed that Elivia was a "different deal to begin with" but in relation to the Alliance Group partnership "culturally, the Irish and the Kiwis are very similar".
"We have the same sense of humour, we have the same language, and we also use the same common law system, so we're almost mirror images of each other apart from we at other ends of the world.
"We're looking at things the same way and the co-operative, board of Alliance and board of Dawn Meats have agreed the strategy for the way forward, and we're going to grow the business and we're going to be a high peforming business," he said.
Following the yes vote by the Alliance Group farmer-shareholders the next stage will see an audit completed then the last board meeting of the existing Alliance Group is scheduled for the end of November.
The new Alliance joint venture will be up and running from the start of December.
"We will be implementing a series of measures straight away," Browne said.
Future plans
According to the chief executive of Dawn Meats while he is in New Zealand enjoying the fact that 87% of farmer-shareholders voted for the new Irish/New Zealand joint venture, the Waterford company continues to be "restless".
"We're always interested in the next strategic move," he said, but in the meantime he is happy to take a moment to look back on how the meat industry has developed in Ireland.
"I remember when I started, 80% of our products was frozen commodity product and intervention in third country.
"Now it's reversed to 80% is going into premium outlets throughout the world. We've done a lot to be proud of in Ireland, and I think we should be proud of our growth across the globe," Browne said.
