{"id":254624,"date":"2026-01-27T19:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/254624\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:49:08","slug":"just-unaffordable-rising-prices-push-hawkes-bay-families-away-from-red-meat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/254624\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Just unaffordable\u2019: Rising prices push Hawke\u2019s Bay families away from red meat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSome meat packs are easily $25. Steak is totally out of the question. So I just live on vegetables, pasta, bread, eggs … or canned protein, like tuna or sardines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TaniaTania Browne prepares a meal in her Raukawa kitchen. She says high meat prices have pushed her toward cheaper staples and a mostly vegetarian-style diet. Photo \/ Rafaella Melo<\/p>\n

Browne stopped buying meat regularly a few years ago, when rising prices made it \u201cjust unaffordable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe price has easily doubled … I\u2019m sure plenty of other people are in the same boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

She now buys meat only for special occasions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI miss meat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love red meat … but now, when I buy it, it\u2019s just a tiny piece on the side, not the main part of the meal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Waipukurau, mental health counsellor Jenni Tomlins has also watched her household change what they eat.<\/p>\n

She lives with her partner, her son and his girlfriend and said chicken had replaced nearly all beef and lamb.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeals that have meat in them are mostly chicken now … because that\u2019s the cheapest meat that you can buy,\u201d Tomlins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sick of cooking chicken all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she sometimes goes vegetarian herself, sacrificing her portions so her 21-year-old son gets enough protein.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can afford beef, then I\u2019ll always put beans, lentils or vegetable mix in with it, so it lasts longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buying mince<\/a> for lasagne or nachos was no longer a cheap option either.<\/p>\n

\u201cMince used to be considered affordable but now, when you\u2019re paying $18 a kilo, it\u2019s not cheap at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just seems ridiculous that we are paying so much for meat from the place where we live.\u201d<\/p>\n

She recalled when her family would have steak twice a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, we would be lucky to get red meat once a week,\u201d Tomlins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of a traditional Sunday roast just doesn\u2019t happen any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Napier chef solo mother of two, who asked not to be named as she feels embarrassed at not being able to afford red meat for her children, said she planned meals strictly around specials.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, only chicken or sausages,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed meat and lamb are now out of my budget … even the humble mince is not affordable without being on special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her household now eats two vegetarian meals a week, stretches chicken across lunches, and she has begun skipping breakfast so groceries last longer.<\/p>\n

Gourmeats Butchery owner David Thompson said he had noticed the change in consumers\u2019 behaviour.<\/p>\n

\u201cPork and chicken are stable, with a slight shift to people eating these cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeef pricing has been relatively stable the last few months. Lamb is a different story altogether and I expect it will continue to rise as the demand is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson said local shops were feeling the squeeze too, trying to stay competitive without passing every cost increase on to customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou simply can\u2019t just keep putting the price up because your supplier does, you have to look at other ways to absorb the costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent rain and high temperatures meant farmers were holding stock longer to fatten them up, likely pushing prices higher in the coming months, he said.<\/p>\n

\"GourmeatsGourmeats owner David Thompson (left) and retail manager Alex Tahau at the Havelock North butchery. Photo \/ Gourmeats<\/p>\n

Hawke\u2019s Bay Federated Farmers president Jim Galloway said farmgate prices for sheep and beef were about 30% higher than last year after several tough seasons, but that flow-on is contributing to higher supermarket prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany HB farmers were affected by Gabrielle and had to spend hundreds of thousands to fix the damage to their farms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the increases, Galloway said farmers received only 20-30% of what consumers paid once freight, processing and retail costs were added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many costs after an animal leaves the farm before it reaches the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woolworths NZ said strong overseas demand was driving red meat prices nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is excellent news for farmers who are seeing better returns, but it means higher prices for our customers,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also seeing reduced availability, at least in part from farm conversion to forestry, adding to price pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woolworths said it hoped to see meat prices moderate this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have absorbed costs that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSome meat packs are easily $25. Steak is totally out of the question. So I just live on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4995,1561,138,29711,5988,2109,71,1976,29012,5511,194,13840,88770,5829,3822,111,139,69,12937,15400,77617,19328,15406,801,115920,10809,39880,55400,147216,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-254624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-away","9":"tag-bay","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-disappearing","12":"tag-families","13":"tag-family","14":"tag-from","15":"tag-hawkes","16":"tag-households","17":"tag-just","18":"tag-kiwi","19":"tag-like","20":"tag-longheld","21":"tag-many","22":"tag-meat","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-prices","27":"tag-push","28":"tag-quietly","29":"tag-reach","30":"tag-red","31":"tag-rising","32":"tag-roast","33":"tag-sunday","34":"tag-tables","35":"tag-traditions","36":"tag-unaffordable","37":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}