CP Foods strives for New Zealand growth as Australian business booms

By Gary Scattergood

- Last updated on GMT

The firm has launched its CP Authentic Asia duck meal range in New Zealand.
The firm has launched its CP Authentic Asia duck meal range in New Zealand.

Related tags New zealand Value added

Thailand’s CP Foods has achieved double-digit growth in Australia since entering the country in 2012, and is now targeting sales success in New Zealand as it seeks greater “expansion and diversification” down under.

The firm has just made its first foray in to the New Zealand market with its CP Authentic Asia duck meal range.

CP Foods is the first company – and Thailand the first country – approved by the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) to import fully-cooked duck into New Zealand. Approval was granted in mid-2017. 

Andrew Turner, CP Foods Retail Manager for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, told us: “We had the soft launch over Christmas and New Year and now it is really taking off.”

“New Zealand is a new market for us. We so sell some seafood in the country, but not under our own brand.”

Whereas the majority of the firm’s growth in Australia has come via seafood, he added that duck offered substantial potential in New Zealand.

“The New Zealand value added duck market has been almost non-existent until now due to the lack of domestic further processing and bans on imports,” ​he said.

“We have developed our fully-roasted duck products to make preparing duck as easy and appealing as possible.

“We’re also very proud to be the first company permitted to bring fully-cooked duck into New Zealand. That development has been down to the stringent bio-security standards that we have in place and the confidence that MPI has in both CP Foods and Thailand.” 

Import ban lifted

In Australia, where the company has enjoyed annual double-digit growth, he said the company was responsible to around 50% of all cooked prawn sales.

It also benefitted last year from the lifting of the import ban on cooked prawns in July.

Turner said the firm was now embarking on a five-year plan to build its business in New Zealand but added the market for seafood products in particular was different to Australia.

“In the seafood space, it is a lot more value-driven, and we see a greater variation in the country of origin of products,”​ he said.

“We will look to at newer, value-added seafood products in the country over the next few years.”

CP Foods currently operates in 16 countries, and exports products from Thailand to over 30 nations.

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