Silver Fern Farms - Partnership Between Consumers And Farmers Key To Nature-positive Food Production

Silver Fern Farms today celebrated the launch of its USDA-approved Net Carbon Zero By Nature 100% Grass-Fed Angus Beef at a New York City event attended by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Held at the Kimpton Hotel Eventi rooftop in Chelsea, the Prime Minister was joined by the visiting New Zealand trade mission, Silver Fern Farms US customers and in-market partners, and New York and U.S. national media. The event was to celebrate the successful introduction of Net Carbon Zero By Nature Angus Beef to the U.S., which is already being sold in supermarkets in the New York Tri-state area, the Midwest, and California.

Silver Fern Farms Chief Executive Simon Limmer says closer partnerships between consumers and farmers through products like Net Carbon Zero beef hold the key to addressing our collective climate and environmental challenges.

“As New Zealand’s largest processor and marketer of red meat, we are in a unique position to build closer partnerships between the needs of discerning customers and our farmers in a way that incentivises nature-positive food production,” says Simon Limmer.

“We see the transition to a low carbon economy as an important opportunity to create new forms of value for New Zealand and position our farmers as climate innovators.

Simon Limmer says customers insights have shown that New Zealand’s pastoral farming system has many of the attributes consumers are looking for.

“Over the past two years, we’ve worked alongside a group of our farmer suppliers from across the country, to better understand their own carbon footprint and opportunities to optimise carbon stored on their farms,” says Simon Limmer.

Building on the information found in the pilot, the Net Carbon Zero Beef programme incentivises farmers to invest in, and maintain, on-farm carbon sequestration including native and riparian planting. The product is fully certified as Net Carbon Zero by New Zealand’s most trusted environmental verification body, Toitū Envirocare and has USDA approval.

“What’s unique about our Net Carbon Zero beef is that the certification is achieved by what our farmers do on their own farms to balance-out emissions, rather than by simply purchasing carbon offsets as is the case for many other carbon zero products,” says Limmer.

“When consumers buy our Net Carbon Zero products they are incentivising our farmers for their efforts to create farm environments that are better able to capture carbon, increase biodiversity, and support nature-positive food production."

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