Page 12 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Choices for Marketing team to make in 2019
AS we move further in- to 2019, producers have told us production will likely be somewhere be- tween stable and slightly less than 2018.
So what choices do we need to make in the Mar- keting team?
Australian Pork Lim- ited has recently under- gone independent audits of our marketing and R&D processes.
The two reports essen- tially said we are too fo- cused within marketing and could be aiming at
a broader array of goals, whereas the R&D review – while not completed – suggested at the Del- egates’ Forum in Novem- ber that R&D need to be more focused and target a smaller number of larger goals.
So how do we broaden our focus in marketing and aim at more goals?
The upside of having been focused is we have a lot of information about what consumers have done, at the same time knowing what the indus- try, including retailers, have been doing.
As such, we are looking to potentially reduce the media spend on the current Get Some Pork on Your Fork advertising plan, which will still maintain demand in line with stable production levels.
This will leave some funds available to focus either in differentiation
Marketing Matters
(promoting Austral- ian ham and bacon or improved-quality Aus- tralian fresh pork) or in international, or in both.
This shift away from a single focus (fresh pork) will require us to take more risk and be able to estimate the minimum expenditure required to maintain demand.
When we look at retail sales over the past few years (in dollars not vol- ume), several things can
mand to become pent up. This meant that dol- lar sales were driven by price increases at the re-
tail level.
Then, in 2017 and 2018
there was too much vol- ume available and this progressively caused value growth to become driven out of higher vol- ume sales at lower retail prices.
This also aided growth in domestic foodservice sales.
However, it appears that for the past six months, dollar sales have gone into decline.
This may be because prices are so low that we are getting some sales because we are just so cheap shoppers can’t re- sist buying pork, and that is not sustainable.
It may be the over- supply has caused pigs to be sold that are not at their highest quality
specification, which has caused consumer senti- ment around pork quality to be reduced.
There is evidence this has happened, especially in those markets that are more traded than con- tracted.
Just these facts alone suggest a major reinven- tion of how we man- age product quality and forecasting as an indus- try must be on the 2019 agenda.
However, the immedi- ate issue of a decline in year-on-year dollar sales of fresh pork has led us to continue our single fo- cus on fresh pork until June 2019, while build- ing capability and activ- ity plans to broaden our scope of activities later in 2019.
The first half of 2019 plan includes the in- creased activity in West- ern Australia (September to March) and national advertising continuing in the same way that has supported demand since 2014.
We are also launching an additional industry initiative this month, sup- ported by many in the supply chain, a Chinese New Year promotion for the lunar Year of the Pig.
Find out more at yearofthepig.com.au
One choice APL has al- ready made is we need to spend more time listening to industry about what is about to happen and less time administering the numbers.
To do this we are creat- ing a new data warehouse to manage the statistics in a more automated way, leaving time for discus- sion with producers.
The choices we have yet to make are how much effort we put into build- ing demand in Australian ham and bacon or how far we need to explore international markets.
We plan to discuss this with industry around March this year.
Obviously, grain prices will make 2019 pretty tough, but let’s at least position ourselves for better years ahead.
by PETER HAYDON General Manager Marketing
be discerned from the graph and other data we have.
While fresh pork has been the growth story of the past four years, that growth seems to have re- versed in the past few months in dollar sales (December 2018 saw our first volume sales declines since January 2016).
It appears that in 2015 and 2016 there was not enough pork volume avail- able, which caused de-
Don’t bring it to work!
Dr Kim Nairn of Portec Veterinary Services.
A NEW awareness campaign has been launched by Apiam Animal Health to sup- port pork producers in improving biosecurity awareness in the face of elevated African swine fever risks.
The ‘DON’T BRING IT TO WORK’ campaign focuses upon the most likely pathways of intro- ducing the ASF virus in- to Australian pig farms.
Portec Veterinary Ser- vices clinic lead Dr Kim Nairn said, “African swine fever is the latest disease risk to the health status of our national pig herd.”
“This campaign aims to enhance the producer’s understanding of the ASF threat and the role everyone on farm can play to stop it at the front gate in the event of an outbreak.”
“We want to raise awareness among staff and visitors to the im- portance of their role in managing the risks of on- farm contamination with practical farm-based tools such as training ma- terials, reminder posters and shed disease profile posters.”
With the recent detec- tion of ASF virus in con- taminated pork products
at the Australian border, the campaign is timely support for Austral- ian pig farm owners and managers, providing as- sistance with safeguard- ing the health status of their herds against the introduction of this most serious emergency ani- mal disease.
The three key biosecu- rity-related areas of risk are:
• Contaminated pork products entering facili- ties;
• Contaminated feed- stuffs imported from ASF-positive countries; and
• Staff/visitors who
have recently been over- seas and unknowingly bring disease onto the farm.
“Our objective is to assist in the protection of the national pig herd against ASF by providing training and ASF disease information materials to any Australian pork pro- ducer interested in this type of support for their enterprise,” Dr Nairn said.
For more information on the campaign and for access to the range of staff training and sup- port materials, visit AS FReady.com.au
Page 12 – Australian Pork Newspaper, February 2019
www.porknews.com.au