Pet food exporters have been shut out of China since bird flu was found in New Zealand late last year.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) officials were meeting their Chinese counterparts on Tuesday to discuss how pet food and other poultry products might be allowed back into China.
When the bird flu – H7N6 – was detected on an egg farm in rural Otago, movement controls were placed on the site and all chickens were culled.
Tests on other farms linked to the Otago property returned negative for the disease.
Despite MPI saying it was confident the disease had been eliminated and lifting controls on the original farm, China and several other countries including Taiwan and Japan imposed restrictions on New Zealand poultry imports including pet food.
Chinese-owned King Country Pet Foods had only been in business for 18 months when the ban was introduced and now employs 80 people.
While there had been no job cuts at the company so far, chief operating officer Marcus James told Nine to Noon that roles had not been filled when employees left.
“It’s become quite telling on the bank balance. Keeping those staff on board with not a great deal to do has been costly, but it’s a recognised thing to do in this part of the world. We operate in the middle of the King Country. If we lose valuable staff we would probably not regain them, so we have taken the option to retain them at this point,” he said.
“I think it’ll become intolerable fairly shortly, we will have to make some of those hard decisions if it continues much longer.”
James hoped that one outcome of Tuesday’s meeting is that another planned meeting with MPI and Chinese officials in October would be brought forward.
Pet Food Association managing director Richard Burke said there had been a $100 million drop in revenue among members as a result of being shut out of China.
He said the association was working with MPI to change the requirements for access to China, by reassuring the country that heat treatment of pet food mitigates the risk from bird flu.
Chinese officials wanted to visit New Zealand to audit pet food factories to satisfy themselves that MPI was capable of verifying and signing-off treatment certificates, Burke said.
“It will be a systems audit, they are not going to audit every single plant that produces products for China. They are really auditing MPI and if they are happy that MPI have it under control they will allow MPI to list premises for China. That’s the plan,” he said.
Burke said China was New Zealand’s second biggest export market behind the United States of America.
MPI said it continued to work constructively with its counterparts in China and New Zealand industry partners to restore access to pet food containing avian ingredients, although this did not apply to canned food.
As part of restoring access, China must audit of a selection of pet food manufacturer and areas of focus were still being discussed.
