Xibin Chen started Grand Farm in the northwestern Chinese city of Harbin in 1982, with a cutting bench perched on meat boxes, three people making deliveries and a tricycle.
Today Grand Farm is China’s largest sheepmeat importer, a NZ$1 billion red meat business with 4000 employees, four processing factories certified to European Union standards, and 39 sales and distribution centres throughout China.
Since 2000, Grand Farm has been the Alliance Group’s distributor in China. It has similar agreements with JBS, V and V Walsh, a large West Australian processor, and trading agreements with 19 countries.
Xibin Chen’s daughter, Jiao Jiao Chen, the company’s chief executive, said its customers want New Zealand’s consistently sized, high-quality, grass-fed, natural and disease-free sheepmeat.
“New Zealand farmers take great care of their lamb and treasure it,” she said.
Grand Farm relishes working with a co-operatively-owned food company, saying that by doing so they are dealing with the owners and producers of the sheepmeat they buy.
The relationship with Alliance has strengthened in the past 24 years to more of a partnership not only in the day-to-day business, but also product development.
For example, until recently they were turning 600 tonnes of forequarter meat a year into lamb skewers. That has now increased to 6000t.
Flaps from New Zealand lamb are a key ingredient in the Chinese staple hotpot dish, both domestically and commercially.
The Haidilao hotpot chain, which Grand Farm supplies, has 1351 outlets in China alone and another 23 overseas.
Grand Farm and Alliance are also working on developing new uses and dishes for the knuckle-tip and the aitch bone.
Chen said the two businesses exchange knowledge, expertise and, at the peak of the NZ season, staff to help if there is a shortage.
Grand Farm is now looking to strengthen its business with more beef and to de-seasonalise consumption of red meat, which Chinese consumers consider a winter dish.
Chen said the company is changing to reflect new challenges with its e-commerce business recently acknowledged as a leading red meat retailer by the huge Chinese online retailer jd.com website.
Food security is a key policy of the Chinese government and while it lists rice and pork as the two top foods it wants secure supplies of, beef and lamb are considered high priorities.
But supplies of lamb in particular are likely to be volatile in the next few years, which Chen said is not ideal for business or the industry.
She acknowledged farmers need security, which comes from businesses like Grand Farm taking a long-term view and being a trusted and reliable partner.
“We need to keep looking ahead to get better and that means supporting our suppliers.”
Xibin Chen is still heavily involved in the business but is also active in wider industry and government affairs and is the current chair of China Beef and Lamb, a subgroup of the China Meat Association.
More: Wallace is visiting seven countries in six weeks to report on market sentiment, a trip made possible with grants from Fonterra, Silver Fern Farms, Alliance, Beef + Lamb NZ, NZ Meat Industry Association and Rabobank. Read more about his findings here.
Grand Farm is sheepmeat central for NZ
