Meanwhile, Jeff Bolstad from Morrinsville was presented with a Lifetime Contribution Award, which recognised his long service and contribution to the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards and the wider agriculture sector.
CEO of Asia Pacific at Fonterra, Judith Swales said it was "an excellent result".
"We're so proud of all of our farmers who were finalists in both the regional and national awards [it was] great to clean up that night," she told The Country Sport Breakfast's Brian Kelly.
MyConnect conference
Last week Fonterra held its annual MyConnect conference in Auckland. Around 400 farmers attended, which was a "great turnout," Swales said.
The event was future-focused, and Swales said attendees heard from "a lot of great speakers," including Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck.
The conference was held across two days, so farmers had plenty of time to hear about some of exciting things happening in Fonterra across the world, Swales said.
"They also had a bit of fun, we had Anchor Food Professionals team who ran some cooking demos."
Swales was based in Australia, so couldn't attend the event in-person, but she did dial in "on a cold and rainy morning from regional Victoria," she said.
"A small team of us shared an update on where the Asia Pacific region is currently and what we're focusing on in the future."
Sustainability was important to Fonterra, so the team's update was focused on this topic, Swales said.
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Shopee platform success for Fonterra
It was "no secret" that Fonterra had traditionally been behind its competitors when it came to e-commerce, Swales said.
"But it's one of the things we're doing differently now to set ourselves up for the future."
E-Commerce, in its simplest form was buying and selling online, and the trick was to use the data to keep on improving how to contact and connect with consumers, Swales said.
Therefore, to make up lost ground, Fonterra had built plans and forged relationships with some of the key players in Southeast Asia, including Lazada – the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, Swales said.
Lazada was owned by Alibaba and its rival, Shopee, which recorded a 93 per cent jump in orders to 246 million in 2019, Swales said.
"Over the last six months, we've worked our way into the top five food and beverage brands across Shopee's day sales, securing the number three position back to back, behind Nestlé and Abbott."
Despite being relatively nascent over the last seven months, Fonterra had begun to build the foundations to enable its e-commerce ambition, Swales said.
"I'm pleased to say we've already exceeded last year's performance, so we've got a good year ahead in that space."
