NZ suppliers careful not to be seen exploiting home producers' misfortunes New Zealand lamb suppliers have halted promotion in the UK, a decision highlighting the conflicting pressures on the market here. "We've pulled our consumer advertising, on the basis we can't be seen poking people's eyes out," The Grocer was told on Wednesday by Meat New Zealand. Like the Danes and Dutch in the pigmeat sector and the Irish in the beef trade, the New Zealanders have been careful during successive meat market crises to avoid giving any impression of exploiting home producers' misfortunes. In present circumstances the NZ shippers might seem to face a dilemma. The ban on exports of British live sheep and sheepmeat will divert large tonnages into the domestic trade, and the UK is still the New Zealanders' biggest market. Heavier supply would be regarded as justifying an increased advertising spend in most markets, but political considerations mean this could be a dangerous policy for the New Zealand sheepmeat industry. Its right of access to the UK and other EU markets is often challenged by producers here, Irish along with the French and British, and entry of the high value chilled product is specifically subject to avoidance of any market disturbing activities. High profile promotion activities at the moment might provoke allegations of "irresponsible" marketing, as the New Zealanders have discovered during previous periods of instability in the trade. Their traditional claims of helping maintain demand for all lamb, not merely New Zealand supplies, fail to persuade domestic industry lobbyists, who usually interpret the advertising as intended almost entirely to differentiate the imported product. {{M/E MEAT }}

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