Latest / Best of Business / Jessica Walker: Consumer NZ Acting Head of Research and Advocacy on Wattie's encouraging consumers to buy NZ-grown peaches

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Jessica Walker: Consumer NZ Acting Head of Research and Advocacy on Wattie's encouraging consumers to buy NZ-grown peaches · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
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  Speaker 2: Now, what is blaming consumers for the company's decision to
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  Speaker 2: stop using Kiwi peaches or at least cut back on it.
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  Speaker 2: It's his demand for New Zealand grown can fruit has dropped,
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  Speaker 2: with shoppers more inclined to buy cheaper imports, and so
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  Speaker 2: it's encouraged us to buy local. Jessica Walker's consuming New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand's acting head of Research and Advocacy and with us
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  Speaker 2: how low Jessica, Hi, Heather, do you think encouraging us
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  Speaker 2: to buy locally produced is going to work?
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  Speaker 3: It's really interesting because we know right now price is
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  Speaker 3: trumping absolutely everything else, and so we do lots of
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  Speaker 3: research around consumer sentiments, not specifically around fruit and vegetable
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  Speaker 3: but just in general. And what we're seeing is the
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  Speaker 3: percentage of people saying that locally owned when as being
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  Speaker 3: a patchaes in consideration, we're seeing that drop off massively.
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  Speaker 3: At the same time, we're seeing concerns about price, cost
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  Speaker 3: of food and grosser ratchet up to the point that
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  Speaker 3: you know in our latest supermarket survey and more and
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  Speaker 3: more people are cutting back on fruit and veg and
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  Speaker 3: meat altogether, so I'm not surprised to see that if
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  Speaker 3: it's a case of having cheaper tender or not tin fruit,
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  Speaker 3: than they're going for the cheaperuption.
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  Speaker 2: At what point do you think, how much more would
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  Speaker 2: we pay for local before we stop paying more for local?
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  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's really interesting. And as I say, so,
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  Speaker 3: we've been looking at goods in general, so not specifically
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  Speaker 3: tinned fruit, but we've said only five percent of people
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  Speaker 3: have told us that they're willing to pay a lot more,
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  Speaker 3: and about fourteen percent of people have said that this
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  Speaker 3: is a consideration. So I think there are definitely people
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  Speaker 3: in the market who are willing to pay more for
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  Speaker 3: a local or what would be a premium product, but
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  Speaker 3: for most people it's just about stucking the pantry and
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  Speaker 3: so sadly, right now, price trumps everything.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, here's I mean. Part of the reason I don't
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  Speaker 2: think this is going to work from what is, and
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  Speaker 2: they're only giving it a very half hearted time, seemed,
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  Speaker 2: But part of the reason I don't think it's going
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  Speaker 2: to work is because Buy New Zealand Maid has never
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  Speaker 2: actually worked, does it?
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  Speaker 3: So I was just talking to your producer, and I
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  Speaker 3: always have ten peaches in my pantry, and I'll be honest,
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  Speaker 3: I've never looked at where they come from, so it's
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  Speaker 3: not a purchasing consideration of mine. But even today we've
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  Speaker 3: had emails from somebody saying that outraged by this decision
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  Speaker 3: because for them, the most important thing is New Zealand made,
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  Speaker 3: and so there's definitely going to be a subset of
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  Speaker 3: consumers that once these hawks bay beautiful peaches that were
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  Speaker 3: growing down the road that you can see in the orchards,
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  Speaker 3: and so yeah, I can understand why some people are
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  Speaker 3: outraged by their decision. So New Zealand made for a
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  Speaker 3: subset of consumers is a really important factor. But as
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  Speaker 3: I say, right now, for the vast majority, that's not
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  Speaker 3: even a consideration.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have any view as to whether we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: China dumping peaches.
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  Speaker 1: Again?
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  Speaker 3: Really interesting? So this is the concept that I wasn't
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  Speaker 3: aware of until this afternoon, and we're looking at the
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  Speaker 3: peach situation and it seems like what is a well
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  Speaker 3: within the rights you know, to be asking MV to
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  Speaker 3: looking to them, yes, because it sounds like there's been
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  Speaker 3: an influx of much cheaper product, which of course is
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  Speaker 3: going to have an impact on the domestic market. And
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  Speaker 3: so it sounds like in the past different countries dumping
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  Speaker 3: things here has led to levees being put on and
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  Speaker 3: so it'd be interesting to see if this request does
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  Speaker 3: lead to a levy of more Chinese peaches and what
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  Speaker 3: that would do for the domestic market.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks very much, Jessica, appreciate. That's Jessica Walker, consuming
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand's acting head of Research and Advocacy. So there
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  Speaker 2: is a suspicion, it may be possible the reason that
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  Speaker 2: we have such cheap peaches, and there is I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to say a suspicion, no more than that is because
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  Speaker 2: China maybe dumping peaches in New Zealand. So what is
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  Speaker 2: went to MB I think maybe about twenty twenty three
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  Speaker 2: as them to take a look at it. They looked
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  Speaker 2: at it, they said, no, there's no evidence that China
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  Speaker 2: is dumping because we just can't find it. So they
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  Speaker 2: close that investigation moved on. It looks like what he
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  Speaker 2: has gone back to MB again this year, just a
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  Speaker 2: few months ago and ask them to look at it again.
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  Speaker 2: Possible that that is what's happening, but it doesn't. At
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  Speaker 2: this stage, MB hasn't found anything. If MB find something,
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  Speaker 2: then we start adding some anti dumping levies on which
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  Speaker 2: we were actually doing on Chinese features until twenty seventeen,
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  Speaker 2: so it's a possibility as well.
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