Silver Fern Farms (SFF) chief executive Keith Cooper said there was much uncertainty about what impact the financial crisis would have on high-value protein such as lamb and venison.
"There is no formula about what will happen." he said.
SFF has maintained its forecast of $70 to $80 a lamb this season, rising to over $80 given a favourable exchange rate.
But from a macroeconomic perspective, Mr Cooper said unemployment could rise, the tight credit conditions meant there would be less reinvestment and a general global economic slowdown.
"It all adds up to less spending capability by consumers and down trading on what they do spend on."
Rabobank senior analyst Hayley Moynihan said data from the United States showed a shift this year from people eating at restaurants to cooking at home.
"Those types of trends are likely to be more pronounced."
Mr Cooper said there could be a neutral impact.
Instead of buying lamb, consumers could instead buy low-value beef cuts such as North American burger meat, which most New Zealand beef ends up as.
"Burgers are a cheap form of protein. Therefore, the outlook is quite positive for manufacturing beef products."
Mr Cooper said New Zealand lamb exporters were reliant on markets in Europe and North America, which were being buffeted the most by the economic upheaval.
That was why SFF was looking for new markets elsewhere in the world and, he said, China and the Middle East appeared to be largely unscathed, while the impact on the Russian economy was not as great as Europe and North America.
"New and emerging markets are clearly not only strategically the best way for the meat industry in terms of diversification, but could be economically not so badly impacted on by the credit crunch."
High quality beef cuts tended to be sold in North Asia, which had also been relatively unscathed. The fundamentals for meat were positive.
Demand was growing, supplies were falling and the exchange rate was moving in favour of exporters.
"Potentially, that will mask or override any of the potential outcomes of the global credit crisis."
Mrs Moynihan said farm-gate prices would be the result of market prices, company hedging policies and the exchange rate, and the market and exchange rate were uncertain given the global situation.
It was too early for markets to start reacting and she expected the impact to begin to filter through. She also agreed consumers could trade down to cheaper cuts such as low-value beef cuts, pork and poultry.
There were also signs buyers were delaying purchasing meat given the uncertainty.
"We have seen some general hesitancy from buyers and that has been prevalent for the last couple of months."