More than 150 people packed into the Limes Room at the Christchurch Town Hall to hear about The Value Project at the E Tipu Agri Summit, held in Ōtautahi/Christchurch late June.

The attendees heard from researcher lead Professor Paul Dalziel as he presented the Value Chain Compass, which summarises the five years’ worth of research into how companies are creating greater value from their sustainable production.

The compass offers a guide for companies wanting to create a new value chain, or to transform an existing supply chain into a value chain.

After Professor Dalziel explained the compass, attendees discussed how their own company and product values can help connect to customers in meaningful and valuable ways. They were also introduced to the AERU consumer insights portal which has a depth of data about consumer preferences.

Values are the heart of the Value Chain Compass

At the centre of the compass are your own values. This refers to the collective values held in common by the partners along the chain – from producers to the final consumers – that produce a strong value chain.

“The collective values for premium food and fibre products typically include concerns such as food safety, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, social responsibility and cultural authenticity,” he said.

Next are the four points of the compass. These address major aspects of any market enterprise:

• Demand
• Supply
• Governance
• Management

A key characteristic of successful value chains is associated with each of the four points:

• Demand is associated with Consumer Focus
• Supply is associated with Product Quality
• Governance is associated with Chain Leadership
• Management is associated with Value Co-creation

Four other key characteristics of successful value chains have been placed around the compass, depending on their association with demand or supply, and their association with management or governance:

• Information
• Incentives
• Risk
• Scale

Case study: Taste Pure Nature

The Value Chain Compass has been deployed to good effect already with the highly successful Taste Pure nature campaign by Beef and Lamb New Zealand. The organisation commissioned 6 research projects into overseas consumer preferences and uncovered a 20% price premium for credible, environmental claims.

The Taste Pure Nature brand was created in the US and China to meet that consumer expectation. Growers were asked to supply to standards, set out in the NZ Farm Assurance Programme. Some 8000 beef, sheep and deer farmers are now certified. And it's working: in California, preference for New Zealand beef is up 5%, and lamb is up 4% since March 2020. Awareness of New Zealand beef and lamb is up 19% since March 2020

Read more about the Taste Pure Nature campaign.