On 4 June, accompanied by Andrew Watene, Agri-Food and Geopolitics Lead at KPMG New Zealand, a senior delegation from Tātai Kōura — New Zealand’s second-largest lobster company — including Board Director Tom McClurg, CEO Jeremy Little, and CFO Jesse Johnson, visited the Yuhu Cold Chain (Chengdu) Trading Centre. The two parties explored trends in China’s premium seafood consumption, end-client product requirements, and opportunities for end-to-end supply chain collaboration from source to consumer, with a view to jointly developing new market opportunities in China.
Tātai Kōura is a 100% Māori-owned company with a significant presence in New Zealand’s seafood industry, ranking second in New Zealand by lobster catch, processing, and export volume. The delegation toured the Class A cold storage facilities at the Yuhu Cold Chain (Chengdu) Trading Centre and received a detailed briefing on its smart warehouse management system and logistics platform.
Huang Zhenghong, Executive Director of Yuhu Group (Hong Kong), introduced the Group’s global strategic layout, Yuhu Cold Chain’s innovative Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) business model, and the Group’s end-to-end service capability spanning from origin to table. She noted that Yuhu Group is committed not only to building world-class cold chain infrastructure, but also to securing direct control over premium seafood resources at source through upstream integration in the global food supply chain — including holding wild lobster and abalone fishing quotas, processing plants, and proprietary brands in Australia — providing robust industry-level backing for global trade partners.
The New Zealand delegation expressed strong interest in Yuhu Cold Chain’s comprehensive one-stop solution for international suppliers, covering the full spectrum from international procurement, import and export customs clearance, multimodal logistics, and supply chain finance, to market access, brand marketing, and distribution channel connections. They viewed this highly integrated service model as capable of significantly improving supply chain efficiency and reducing coordination costs. “Yuhu Cold Chain is not just a gateway to the Chinese market — it is a platform that can tackle the full complexity of the trade process in a coordinated way,” said Tom McClurg, Board Director of Tātai Kōura. “The hub network Yuhu Cold Chain has established across China’s key consumer regions — Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, and others — is a highly compelling option for us to optimise logistics routes and respond rapidly to market demand.”
As a major global source of premium seafood, New Zealand is highly complementary to the Chinese market and the potential for collaboration is considerable. This visit by Tātai Kōura marks an important step in Yuhu Cold Chain’s efforts to deepen connections with quality upstream producers worldwide and expand its Southern Hemisphere premium food ingredients supply chain. Yuhu Cold Chain looks forward to deepening cooperation with more outstanding international partners like Tātai Kōura, together exploring new models of industrial collaboration built on resource synergy and shared value, and continuing to bring safe, high-quality, traceable global food products to the domestic market, supporting consumption upgrading and trade facilitation.
Jiang Wensheng, Director of Yuhu Group (Hong Kong) and Chairman of Yuhu Cold Chain (Sichuan), also attended the study visit and exchange.
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