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Bright Future For Food Producers

In a rare event in Australian agricultural prices and demand, nearly all farming staples – grains, dairy, beef, lamb and wool have been close to or above record levels in 2000/2001 and farm export earnings grew by 19 per cent.

The situation for Australian farmers is predicted to get even better over the next year. The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics forecast that farm export earnings would rise almost two per cent to a record $30 billion by 2001/2002. Minister For Agriculture, Warren Trust, said, "Primary producers had not seen such positive times since the 1960’s".

"Australia’s traditional strength as an exporter of primary produce continues to underpin our national economic performance", the Minister said. This positive outlook gives farmers the confidence to spend money on their farms and in their communities. Shopkeepers, publicans and car dealers in many country areas have reported a rise in sales over the past year.

Also, in a sure sign of prosperous times in the bush, rural newspaper, ‘The Weekly Times’ reported spectacular growth in tractor sales. All this has helped induce a feeling of optimism that rarely surfaced during the 80’s and 90’s. Although farmers are just beginning to catch up economically, a notable sense of pride is returning to the farming communities.

Farmers are starting to feel good about themselves again and for the first time in a while, many are spending money on modernising their farms. The world’s population increased by eighty seven million last year and the amount of land available for agriculture in the developed world is decreasing. With this in mind, common sense suggests that food producers have the brightest of futures.

Effective Advertising Brings Results

Are you serious about achieving great results with your business? Leading Edge received a call from Cookon Commercial Catering Equipment, an advertiser with our magazine. Mr. Ron Pattinson, Managing Director of Cookon said how impressed he was with the results he achieved by advertising his bakery display cabinets.

Mr. Pattinson said in this day and age you can’t afford to sit on the fence and hope your phone will ring. You have to be prepared to spend a dollar to make it ring and when it does act fast, give your prospective clients the type of service they expect. Successful food retailers will bend over backwards to keep their regular clientele.

So they expect this same service from companies they purchase equipment from. You don’t hear an ingredient company say ‘hopefully we should have that flour to you in two weeks’. Mr. Pattinson said service is definitely the key issue and spending money to promote yourself is essential for survival.

Leading Edge contacted two of Cookon’s latest clients to see what they had to say. Rob Brewer of Winmalee Gourmet Bread in NSW said "We wanted to revamp our shop and were having discussions with a few companies that supplied display cabinets. We saw Cookon’s ad in Leading Edge and contacted them. We faxed a plan of what we wanted and within two days received a sketch from Cookon with what they could do and two weeks later the cabinets were installed. Their service was impeccable, the whole job was organised over the phone and with the fax.

Brian Collins, an ex-solicitor who runs BC’s Bakery in Ashmore, Queensland, said that they contacted four companies with the view to updating their counters. Brian said they contacted Cookon through an insert in Leading Edge.

They found that Cookon were not the cheapest but were impressed with the efficiency of Cookon and the quality of service and product. The counters were fitted on time and perfectly. Brian said the comments from his customers have been a real eye opener.

"They seem to be dragging in our customers. People come in for a pie these days and end up buying extra products. Our sales went up by 10% in the first week".

Brian invites anyone from the trade to come and have a look at his shop. So after our interview with these businesses we notice the word service came up constantly. So don’t sit on the fence, promote your business well and continually offer your customer the excellent service they deserve and expect.

Moffat reported that the Sottoriva range of bakery equipment is now the fifth highest selling product catagory within their range, the Genesis Bakery System this year moving up to number four and Rotel oven remaining number one.

Sydney and Melbourne branches sold the most Sottoriva throughout their 2000/2001 sales year, with Perth not being too far behind. For Genesis, Queensland was the number one sales state with 6 installations in total for the year

Moffat informed that quite a number of larger Sottoriva specialty plants and ovens had been sold, and sales of mixers, sheeters and specialty moulders were also sold in good quantities to small bakeries that had owned Sottoriva equipment for some years and purchased it again when a replacement was required.

They advised that the Sottoriva range has always had a strong following in Australia, and although slightly higher in price, has proven to be both reliable and good value for money when compared to other equipment ranges imported from Italy. Sottoriva they said have a far more extensive offering than most Italian equipment companies and definitely have a high degree of expertise in specialty plant for producing Italian breads and rolls.

The demand for specialty bread plants and equipment for producing products more cost effectively is more common these days and, because of this a turnkey project manager has been appointed to co-ordinate these larger contracts that consume considerable time and resources from within the group.

Steve Prior has taken on this responsibility and brings more than thirty years experience in all facets of the baking industry. Steve will concentrate on various turnkey projects, which will include specialty bread and roll plants, cake production plants, depositors, and various biscuit and sweet goods plants.

This area of Moffat’s business continues to grow at a reasonable rate each year and with these types of installations comes the need for someone to source the equipment needed to produce what it is the customer requires cost effectively.

Ron Treloar, National Sales Manager for Moffat, informed LEADING EDGE that although Moffat have ample expertise in its people around Australia; these larger projects do require a dedicated resource for both co-ordination of the installation and the initial training of staff. "We also hope that by having a dedicated resource in this area of our business we can devote more time training both our own staff and our agents around the country on the entire range of equipment we offer to the baking industry," stated Ron.

Steve is part of a national sales group that includes Tony McNab who is presently dedicated to the installation, training, and continued export growth of the Genesis Bakery System. Having Tony dedicated to this product has assisted Moffat to continually improve both the installation procedures and training issues when selling Genesis.

The endless demonstrations carried out by Tony at various open days and exhibitions has definitely enabled us to improve the potential of this particular product by people having a far better understanding of the machines overall capability and flexibility.

We now have over forty installations of the Genesis Bakery System throughout Australia and New Zealand, and by the end of 2002 we are very confident of having sixty five units installed within independently owned bakeries.

Up to now the Brumby’s group is the only national chain to install the Genesis Bakery System. Moffat do expect others operators in both Australia and overseas will install the Genesis in larger turnover stores because of the high cost of labour they experience when producing through a conventional unit machine bread plant. Brumby’s now have three machines installed and we believe these are all giving savings in production hours, which means less problems and more profit for the owners of the stores.

Ideally Tony and Steve will concentrate on those product lines that are more specialized and require a much higher level of expertise than is normally needed. Ron informed that in this area Moffat will continue to grow as he believes there are very few companies with adequate enough resources to successfully install, train and give ongoing support to the type of project in the future.

Our company was the first in the world to install turnkey bakeries in Russia claimed Ron, so we have ample experience in the area of project work to draw on as we continue to grow this area of our business.

The Retail Industry faces major challenges in its drive to recruit quality candidates if it does not start selling itself to school leavers. In a recent survey conducted by Clemenger Harvie Edge, respondents placed retail at the bottom of the list as a career option.

Among the common perceptions of retail is that it doesn’t offer long term opportunities for career advancement and financial reward. It’s seen as a job for those with no retail skills and more of a short term money solution for those training or studying in another field.

Kim Boehm, Managing Director of Clemenger Harvie Edge, said retailers need to work on changing school leavers’ perception of retail.

"Career positions exist in store management, merchandising, buying, logistics, finance, marketing and property", he said.

Bakers Delight Managing Director, Braedan Lord, sees a real opportunity for the retail industry to promote itself as a career of choice for school leavers.

"The main challenge is to get people excited about what they can achieve in a career in retail. At Bakers Delight, it can result in becoming a full franchise where you have the satisfaction of running your own business", said Mr. Lord.

FoodPro is the Asia Pacific’s largest and most important event for the food processing industry. The industry is worth $64 billion in sales annually, to Australia alone. The merging of these two important events will see FoodPro exhibitors increase to more than 200, covering three halls of exhibition space. In addition, more than 1000 delegates are expected to attend the conference.

FoodPro is held every three years and is a showcase of the latest developments in all aspects of processing and manufacture.

FoodPro is expected to attract over 10,000 visitors from all sectors of the Australian and international food processing industry. FoodPro 99 attracted a record crowd of more than 8,000 food industry professionals from thirty countries.

The FoodPro in July 1999 attracted a record crowd of just over 8,000 visitors from 30 countries and from all Australian states to the Sydney Exhibition & Convention Centre.

Organisers said many visitors commented on the number of world-first research innovations and new processes that were launched at FoodPro99 as well as the high quality of the exhibition displays.

"Food processing is Australia’s biggest manufacturing sector and spends a staggering $227.3 million annually on research and development. Clearly, the industry views FoodPro as an ideal international forum at which to launch the results of much of that research because the exhibition provides an obvious window of opportunity," he said.

FoodPro began 37 years ago as the International Meat Trades Fair at the Sydney Showgrounds. The original event was the brainchild of Trevor Riddell, founder of the Australian exhibition company, Riddell Exhibition Promotions Pty. Ltd.

FoodPro now encompasses all aspects of food processing products and services including machinery, ingredients, additives, packaging, weighing systems, safety, cleaning and refrigeration as well as new processing technologies for a huge range of food products from seafood, fruit and vegetables to dairy, confectionary and bakery.