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SKILLS ALARM For Kiwi Food Sector as The Train Hurtles Down the Track

JC Analyst - August, 2025


NZ Brain Drain Warning

⚠️ WARNING!! Brain Drain Threatens NZ’s Food Future


New Zealand’s latest migration settings are colliding with its food ambitions.


Net migration has collapsed to just +13,700 (YE June 2025), while a 13-year-high 71,800 citizens packed up and left, most young, skilled, and irreplaceable. Those empty lab benches and processing plants aren’t abstract, they are the missing hands behind precision fermentation, functional foods, and value-added exports. If NZ cannot hold onto its scientists and food technologists, it risks sliding back into a commodity economy while Asia races ahead


And yet, Asia’s middle class is exploding. New Zealanders themselves made a record 730,200 trips to Asia in the same year, reflecting the cultural and commercial bridge being built. With Asia’s middle-class consumer base expected to reach 3.5 billion by 2030, the region has every vested interest in ensuring NZ keeps growing and keeps innovating, because this tiny country still produces enough food to feed 40–50 million offshore consumers.



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