PGG Wrightson Encouraged by Support for a United Velvet Industry

PGG Wrightson is encouraged by reports that deer farmers support efforts to unify the velvet industry. Group General Manager Rural Services, Hugh Martyn commented on the growing disparity in fortunes between industries that have unified marketing structures and those that don’t. “Increasingly we are seeing that dairy farmers and Merino growers are reaping the benefits of their commitment to strong, unified marketing channels, while other sectors of the New Zealand farming community debate how they can achieve similar success. Whichever way you achieve it, New Zealand farming has more to gain from strong internal co-operation than it does from  estructive in-market competition. In this context it is pleasing to see New Zealand velvet producers supporting the concept of a strong marketing channel for their velvet”.

PGG Wrightson and the Velconz Working Group are working through the detail of how a jointly owned marketing company for Velvet might work. “It’s fair to say that initially we were uncertain about the support that Velconz had,” says Martyn. “We’ve always said that the concept made sense, and is similar to what we have operating in Merino, but have been looking for a strong indication of producer support as the other ingredient needed to make this a success.” Martyn remains under no illusions as to how challenging this will be. “Even with a good idea and strong support, there is still a lot of joint work to be done by PGG Wrightson and the working group to develop a business proposal that the working group can put in front of producers and ask them to sign up to. Ultimately that is the test that really matters. It is not about whether we think this makes sense but what producers think that matters. We think there’s enough support out there to make this happen and have our best people working on
the detail but, at the end of the day, whether it succeeds will depend on whether velvet producers are prepared to sign-on or not. Ultimately the industry belongs to producers and they will need to decide whether to invest in building a marketing platform for their product.”

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For Further information, please contact:

Hugh Martyn
Group General Manager, Rural Services
PGG Wrightson
Tel:  03 372 0974
Mobile:  027 474 7470