NZ farmers invite Johnny Rotten to visit their cows

New Zealand's dairy farmers say they want former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) to come here and visit their cows.

The former punk rocker has been paid by a British dairy company to persuade customers buying Fonterra's Anchor butter to switch to a UK brand, Dairy Crest's Country Life.

It mounted the campaign after a survey showed 39 per cent of Britons believed the Anchor brand was British.

The print ads feature an image of the singer under the headline "Anchor's from New Zealand". Underneath, it reads "So, I buy Country Life cos I think it tastes best."

But the NZ farmers want the singer to see for himself the difference that their "free range" cows make to the quality of dairy products. Many British cows are confined to barns or feedlots.

"Kiwi cows are in a league of their own," said Willy Leferink, Federated Farmers dairy section vice-chairman..

"Grazing outdoors on GM-free grass and natural winter feed makes for happy cows and fantastic quality milk."

Mr Leferink said that the only British butters which matched NZ butter for quality were expensive, hand-crafted lines.

"New Zealand's climate and quality pasture means we are in an agricultural sweet spot," he said.

"British consumers literally taste freedom when they eat New Zealand butter."

Dairy farmers are the rock stars of the New Zealand economy, according to Mr Leferink, and he said he would be pleased to host the old punk rocker on his own mid-Canterbury farm.

"Perhaps Mr Lydon could use some of the money he got paid for endorsing the British brand to pay for his flight down under," he said.

Federated Farmers dairy chairman, Lachlan McKenzie said the taste of New Zealand's butter spoke louder than the campaign.

"Our butter from New Zealand, because of the higher fat content and how we feed out animals, does have more flavour, so some people will prefer the flavour of the Anchor brand than the UK brand."

Agriculture Minister David Carter said British consumers knew that New Zealand food had been going into the UK market for many years and had a very high reputation.

But he noted that the "buy local" tone of the campaign posed a threat and that New Zealand was spending a lot of money researching the "carbon footprint" of key export commodities so that such issues could be argued on the science.

Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier has previously said that "food miles" had been used by Fonterra's competitors to make "their butter look better than our butter".

- NZPA