The meat industry and MPI have both welcomed China’s granting of approval for the export of chilled meat from New Zealand. This improved market access, which has been highly-sought after for many years, will complement the strong volume of frozen meat that is currently exported and provide Chinese consumers with more choice.

This news relates to some of the key points raised in DYNAMAR’s recent report, which looks at trends in the global perishables trade. Specifically, the report details how the seaborne perishable trade as a whole is expected to expand between 4% to 5% annually until 2020, on the back of global population growth.

In line with this, we have seen reefer trade increase as a proportion of our cargo profile at Kotahi and it now stands as a third of total volume. We are also seeing container lines invest more into reefer capacity as a response to global trends. For example, Maersk Line added 30,000 new reefer containers to its global fleet last year. Importantly for the New Zealand market, we have seen a number of carriers invest to improve their 20 foot container fleet, with Maersk adding 8,000 new containers, and Hamburg Sud adding approximately 1,500 containers in the last 12-18 months.