Page 18 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Excellent quality Concrete Slats for Piggeries
Farrowing and weaner crates, growers and baconer pens. Feed hopper with stainless steel trough.
Farrowing flooring with a 10mm gap; weaners flooring with a 12mm gap; and growers flooring with a 15mm gap.
Diagonal Farrowing Crate.
Straight Farrowing Crate.
Weekly meat forecast accuracy
Getting better at seeing what’s coming
Variation of actual vs forecast (%) Actual variation from forecast (%)
Oct 17 seasonally adjusted meat forecast vs actual Feb 18 total meat forecast vs actual
Figure 1
June reforcast weekly slaughters vs actual slaughters
ONE of the lessons of 2017 was improvements in forecasting were nec- essary.
This is a never-ending journey, but it does look like we are making some progress.
On the supply side, Pe- ter Smith (APL’s Market- ing Development man- ager) has received many responses to the latest production survey and we ask every producer to complete it.
This is a major focus to cover even more of the total herd.
If you need a hand with the survey paperwork, please contact Peter on peter.smith@australian pork.com.au or 02 6270 8841.
Peter has also made several changes with the help of the export abat- toirs and feedback from producers.
This has resulted in a forecast that is weekly and measurement occurs against that forecast each week.
A weekly forecast gives us 52 opportunities to learn each year, which is a big improvement on the three a year we used to take.
In addition, forecast- ing supply has become more difficult as we have moved from relative sta- bility in productivity in 2015 and 2016 to improv- ing productivity in 2017 and 2018.
This has meant we are trying new methods of forecasting weekly each month for the foreseeable future.
Our current (made from the February 2018 pro- duction survey) forecast is based on slaughters and
Marketing Matters
by PETER HAYDON General Manager Marketing
carcass weight.
While the total meat
produced forecast is rela- tively accurate, we have been overestimating car- cass weight and underes- timating slaughters.
In Figure 2 is a com- parison of slaughter fore- casts as an example.
The blue line shows that for the past 13 weeks we have underestimated total slaughters by 2.5 percent.
The orange line adds the extra 2.5 percent and hence makes the forecast fit what happened better.
We will monitor accu- racy against both fore- casts and use whichever method proves more ac- curate.
On the demand side, Kathleen Pindsle (APL’s Insights manager) has completed an analysis and arranged for a fore- casting tool to be created.
It uses our historic sales data (for pork, lamb, beef and chicken) in volume, price and dollars and es- timates how much of the sales growth is driven by what factor.
We are in the process of testing this.
The goal is to be able to forecast demand by making assumptions in consumer prices be- tween species, population growth, seasonality and advertising.
Currently this appears to work quite well for to- tal retail pork sales.
On the subject of re- tail sales, pork in fresh meat remains the volume growth story.
However, forecast vol- ume sold in the biggest channel increased by 8.3 percent in the weeks of April and May but pro- duction in those periods increased by 10 percent, putting further pressure on pig price.
Over the next couple of months, we have planned an additional sausage promotion activity, based on the World Butchers’ Challenge win by Adam Stratton of the best pork sausage in the world.
In addition, APL’s Brand manager Eunbi Lee has arranged for par- ticularly heavy advertis- ing of a new nutrition TV execution and additional promotions are being or- ganised in most major supermarkets involving both APL and several of the pork supply chains.
Finally, additional lead- ership and cause-related marketing from produc- ers in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria is adding to the demand mix, which is both impressive in the circumstances and a great help to the cause.
Feb 18 baconer carcass weight forecast vs actual Reforecast baconer carcass weight forecast vs actual
Figure 2
Retail volume sales growth by species
Pork y/y volume growth Chicken y/y volume growth
Beef y/y volume growth Lamb y/y volume growth
Figure 3
Ph (02) 6644 6065
Mobile 0437 431 901 | Email sales@vereyken.com.au
2 Clark Rd, Junction Hill • PO Box 421, Grafton NSW 2460
Head Office:
Victoria: Freecall:
Vereyken Bros. Pty Ltd ABN 11 003 543 548
Ben Slots 1800 999 245
Anytime or (02) 6644 6065 Mobile: 0437 431 901
Phone: (03) 9462 4266 Mobile: 0418 388 842
Page 18 – Australian Pork Newspaper, July 2018
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