Listen: Good news for the meat industry

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The chairman of the Alliance Group Murray Taggart spoke to The Country's Jamie Mackay about a great season for sheep farmers.

Lamb is still fetching $7/kg which Mackay suggests is unexpected. Taggart, however, is less surprised, saying company projections were quite confident that lamb would do well, "to be fair we really thought it would have come a wee bit earlier."

Although Brexit could have caused problems for the meat industry Taggart says in the end it showed there is a much better diversity of markets.

"While Brexit occurred, we're still seeing significant volumes of chilled going into the UK, it's more...the frozen product that has suffered."

Another issue that could possibly be detrimental to New Zealand's meat industry is Donald Trump's potential trade war, says Mackay, although Taggart is not too concerned.

"If you look at it from New Zealand's perspective, beef obviously is a key export into the US but increasingly we've got other markets around the world; particularly in Asia where those countries are keen to purchase our beef, so we're not quite as dependant on the US as we used to be."

Listen below: