That all-important Chinese market for baby formula might be in the doldrums, but New Image Group has rolled with that punch and is rapidly diversifying its mostly goat milk production as it celebrates its 40th year in business. NIG Nutritionals runs a sprawling new processing facility on a nearly 60,000-square-metre footprint site in Paerata, Auckland built in 2017 to produce its internationally established proprietary brands, including New Image, Babysteps, Bioshine and Symbiotics.
The facility not only manufactures food supplement products especially their famous colostrum products from cow’s milk but also becoming more and more specialised in nutritional dairy products from goat milk in recent years, it processes about 15 million litres of goat’s milk, servicing markets around New Zealand and the world.
The dominant market for infant formula products before the COVID-19 outbreak was China, but its subsequent economic slump has launched NIG Nutritionals into a diversification strategy taking in a range of countries from Vietnam, Singapore, Egypt, Mideast to Trinidad and Tobago. It’s also expanding its core range of products from child to adult formulas, all dairy products marketed by NIG Internationals.
NIG Nutritionals is the domestic arm of the New Image Group, founded in 1984, established by former champion shearer Graeme Clegg, to take high nutritional value milk products to a global market. It acquires its goat’s milk under contract from about a dozen farmers running flocks of up to 6,000 nannies, though most flocks number between 1,000 and 1,200.
“We’re excited about reaching our 40th birthday, and we can see a lot of upsides in our growth potential in the coming years,” says CEO Leon Fung.
NIG Nutritionals Ltd employs 170 staff operating state-of-the-art equipment that includes evaporation and drying plant, blending and packing plants, boilers and water treatment, chillers, pumps and valves. The Paerata plant also produces organic cow’s milk products for global clients, including Fonterra.
Until the Chinese downturn prompted a vigorous market diversification programme, NIG Nutritionals’ products were exported mainly there and to Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. “There are promising signs that the Chinese economy is in recovery, and we’ve been able to hold our own in the meantime, but China’s declining birth rate is dampening the long-term prospects in that market,” says CEO Leon Fung. “Our market diversification is broadly aimed at other countries, not just in Asia but around the world, and we’re confident that our strategy will set us on a course of further production and marketing growth.”
Leon, who is bilingual in Chinese, has a 20-year history as a management professional in multi-national food and beverage companies and has been steering the NIG Nutritionals ship in the last two years or so. “We’re excited about reaching our 40th birthday, and we can see a lot of upsides in our growth potential in the coming years,” he says.
In mid-2022, New Image Group added a further entity to its stable in the form of the high-profile 54-year-old Nutrimetics health and nutritional company from American-owned Tupperware Brands. Group owner Graeme Clegg said at the time that the acquisition was a “perfect fit” for New Image Group, with Nutrimetics skincare products in particular offering a new niche for the group to expand into. He has since introduced new business systems to grow Nutrimetics’ marketing and sales.
© Waterford Press Ltd 2024 – Independent Print Media New Zealand
