Latest / Best of Business / James Annabell: Egmont Honey founder on the impact Donald Trump's tariffs are having on Kiwi businesses

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James Annabell: Egmont Honey founder on the impact Donald Trump's tariffs are having on Kiwi businesses · Best of Business

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• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Ray and Bridge Shade.
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  Speaker 2: Tariffs are in place now, They've been in place for
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  Speaker 2: just over an hour. It's ten percent for Kiwi goods
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  Speaker 2: heading to the United States. James Annabel is the founder
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  Speaker 2: of Egmont. Honey, he's with me tonight. Got stuff hitting
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  Speaker 2: that way, James, Good evening, Good.
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  Speaker 3: Evening, Ryan, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 2: Good to have you on. So just how well, what
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  Speaker 2: have you got in the ocean at the moment heading
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  Speaker 2: to the States, And what's the deal with the tariffs.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got five or six containers on the water,
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  Speaker 3: which I believe are exempt actually, which is great. But
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  Speaker 3: I know for a fact that we've sort of we've
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  Speaker 3: got about ten containers due to leave sort of end
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  Speaker 3: of April May, which will all be subject to ten
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  Speaker 3: percent tariffs. So we were obviously scrambling when we got
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  Speaker 3: the news last week.
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  Speaker 2: The ones that are exempt, you mean, because they are
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  Speaker 2: already on the water, they won't face the charge. That's
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  Speaker 2: happened too soon.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So I believe anything that left kind
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  Speaker 3: of after Saturday, well before Saturday last week. We're exempt.
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  Speaker 3: I could be wrong there. An expert will probably bring
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  Speaker 3: it in some wrong but we understand that what's on
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  Speaker 3: the water now is okay. But the containers to come
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  Speaker 3: are all going to be subject to that ten percent.
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  Speaker 2: And for the honey that's going in April, have you
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  Speaker 2: figured out whether you'll be able to pass that on
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  Speaker 2: to your consumers?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, we're we're in a situation where we've got
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a pipeline fill because we've just won
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  Speaker 3: a big, big chunk of business with Costco USA, so
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  Speaker 3: we yeah, we obviously jumped on the emails pretty quick
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  Speaker 3: to try and get a meeting with the buyer, and
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  Speaker 3: luckily he was pretty responsive and he's actually allowed us
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  Speaker 3: to pass that ten percent onto them, So we've escaped
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  Speaker 3: it pretty well. And of course, when you're when you're
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  Speaker 3: tendering for that kind of work, you know, you put
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  Speaker 3: your best foot forward anyway, So we couldn't afford really
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  Speaker 3: to suck up ten percent and he knew that. So
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  Speaker 3: I guess it's the US consumer that will well will
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  Speaker 3: take the brunt.
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  Speaker 2: Of they'll have to wear it in our case, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: will they buy less?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I guess That's always the conundrum we're in, you know,
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  Speaker 3: economic uncertain times. Are people going to pay an extra
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  Speaker 3: ten percent for manoucure? I mean it's already a premium product,
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  Speaker 3: but if I guess, if you know, if your household shop,
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  Speaker 3: you price of everything's going up, you're certainly going to
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  Speaker 3: be considering whether you need a pot of Manuka honey.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, places like Costco they're pretty competitive anyway,
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  Speaker 3: so we're we're not too concerned at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: James, good to have you on the show. And who
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  Speaker 2: doesn't want Look, even if it's ten percent extra, you
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  Speaker 2: still want your Eggmont honey, don't you? James Annabel, founder
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  Speaker 2: of Iggmont Honey.
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