The Alliance meat co-operative is holding its first conference for suppliers this week, to bring them up to speed with what's happening in the red meat sector. About 200 are expected to attend in Queenstown.
Alliance livestock general manager Murray Behrent said speakers will cover developments in areas including research and development, farm management, global economic trends and the international meat trade.
"We want to build closer relationships with our shareholder suppliers. So we've decided to hold our first conference and bring in a large number of guest speakers to talk about the future,'' he said.
And I guess that's why we've branded our conference 'Setting the Scene and Shaping our Future'.
And we're hoping that our shareholders or our suppliers will get a huge benefit and gain a lot of inside knowledge on where the market's going to in the future."