Wellington
Sometimes it takes somebody else to bring to light the reason you’re uncomfortable withsomething.
In this case, Wellington’s
Vantage ConsultingGroup
director David Miller has unearthed the nub of the challenge underneath the proposedbuy-out of manuka honey (and other products) producer
“Do we really want to expose one of our most promising high added value primary industry basedsectors to the whims of offshore managers,” Miller asks?
“The thought of flogging offshore the value chains associated with icons such as Mt Cook, theWaitomo Caves, the kiwi or the All Blacks would be beyond the imagination of most New Zealanders.Why on earth would we do it for manuka honey derived health products, which are based on anothernational icon?”
Miller (whose press release can be found
Like Chalkie in yesterday’s Dominion Post, Miller says that shareholders and directors maysimply be looking for the best deal, now, that they can out of potential buyers. Chalkie (see thearticle
sticK’s in agreement with them both. The recently launched Manuka Research Partnership (a 50:50deal under the Primary Growth Partnership fund) is looking at how to produce 16 times the currentproduction of manuka honey and crack $1 billion in sales over the next few years. Much of its focusis on improving the yield from swathes of high country that increasingly may only be suitable forwhat was once considered a weed.
Comvita’s a cornerstone component of the MRP, but quite how a change of ownership would affectthe research programme is problematic.
Miller’s right.
This is ‘our’ product, and though it is over to Comvita shareholders to decide whether theyare prepared to be patient and execute a long-term strategy, there’s a great potential for yetanother New Zealand industry to merely end up being pawns in somebody else’s game.
If NZ Inc, in this case strongly led by Comvita, doesn’t control its manuka value chain,efforts such as MRP risk being still-borne before they’ve really even started.