3.8m tourists get mixed reception
Fonterra and New Zealand Post will trial new technology with the aim of stopping exported food fraud and increasing China’s trust in New Zealand products.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding announced yesterday that it would trial the use of blockchain to let online shoppers trace products before they arrived at their door.
Fonterra and NZ Post will be among the first to test the technology on Anchor milk products.
The three companies signed a memorandum of understanding to improve food safety last year.
Australia Post and health supplement company Blackmores will carry out the trial from Australia.
Consultancy firm PWC will review supply-chain reporting during the trial.
If the trial is successful, it will be rolled out for all sellers, producers and transporters on Alibaba’s Tmall Global online marketplace.
New Zealand food brands Whittaker’s, Sanitarium and The a2 Milk Company sell their products to Chinese consumers through Tmall Global. NZ Post has its own store on the website.
The blockchain idea stemmed from Alibaba’s food trust framework plan.
Tmall import and export general manager Alvin Liu said the technology aimed to ‘‘authenticate, verify, record and provide ongoing reporting of the transfer of ownership and provision of products and goods.
‘‘The framework aims to achieve end-to-end supply chain traceability and transparency to enhance consumer confidence and build a trusted environment for cross-border trade across Alibaba’s Tmall Global platform.’’
Blockchain is not Alibaba’s first use of technology to give shoppers more information about where their food comes from.
In Alibaba’s supermarket subsidiary Hema Fresh, shoppers can use the Tmall app to scan barcodes’ quick response (QR) codes on products. It shows information about a product’s manufacturer, country of origin, and date of arrival in China. Some products, like seafood, even showed import documentation.
Hema Fresh chief financial officer Sheng Cong said transparency was a priority for the company. More than half of the food and beverage products it sold were imported from outside China.
Alibaba or Hema staff visited all international suppliers to check they were legitimate, and carried out quality practices.
‘‘We just don’t rely on the suppliers’ word that they say ‘This is good; you should sell that.’ We will go to it by ourselves to see whether it’s worse.’’
Foodstuffs, which owns New World and Pak’n Save supermarkets, did not audit its international or local suppliers.
If news broke of an exploitative or unsafe supplier, Foodstuffs barred the supplier immediately and required it to prove itself before it resumed doing business with it, Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin said.
‘‘With our suppliers we basically make them responsible for it. They have to warrant to us that their product is coming to us free of slavery and safe. They have to show us proof.’’
The Ministry for Primary Industries verified the quality of New Zealand suppliers, he said.
‘‘We try to use the authorities here; we have less ability to do that offshore.’’
Quin said transparency was top of mind for shoppers buying food.
‘‘People are very conscious of what I’m eating, where it came from and how people were treated. The transparency of product now is so big.’’
❚ The writer travelled to China courtesy of Alibaba Group. International tourist numbers have risen 1.2 million in the past five years, but enthusiasm about the economic benefits they bring is tempered by concern about the negative impact of rapid growth.
The latest Statistics New Zealand figures show 3.8 million tourists visited in the year to March, yet another record.
A tourism industry mood of the nation survey of 555 people released yesterday shows most Kiwis believe foreign tourists are good for New Zealand, but one in five still think we attract too many of them.
The percentage of those who believe international visitors put too much pressure on the country has dropped 1 per cent; however, at 39 per cent, is still more than double what it was in late 2015.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) chief executive Chris Roberts said the improvement, albeit small, was a good sign.
‘‘It is heartening that this trend has levelled off in the latest survey and overall sentiment has slightly improved.’’
According to the survey, pressure on infrastructure was the top concern, as well as accommodation shortages, environmental damage, freedom camping, traffic congestion and road safety.
Concerns were higher in Queenstown and Auckland, with negative feeling strongest in Otago where 55 per cent of residents thought tourism was putting too much pressure on the country.
Economic benefits topped the list of pros for international tourism, while cons focused on traffic congestion and the increased risk and incidence of road accidents.
International tourism is New Zealand’s biggest export earner, contributing $14.5 billion a year to the economy, and directly or indirectly employing one in seven New Zealanders.
In the year to March, Australia remained our largest visitor market (39 per cent), followed by China (11 per cent), the United States (9 per cent), and the United Kingdom (7 per cent).
Auckland Airport showed the biggest increase in arrivals, up almost 190,000, while Christchurch Airport arrivals rose 57,700 to 554,700. Wellington Airport was the only main centre to show a drop, with arrivals down 3800.
The record arrivals are reflected in the rise in spending by tourists, with half the country’s 16 regions enjoying double-digit increases for the year.
Spending figures for March showed big rises in Gisborne (40 per cent), Canterbury, Marlborough, Otago and Taranaki (21 per cent to 23 per cent).