Page 7 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Well-rubbed crystal ball reveals all
Cant
Comment
by BRENDON CANT
MY murky crystal ball, so gently rubbed for No- vember’s Cant Comment column, seems to have been on the money, with an announcement to- day (November 28) that Craig Mostyn Group has bought Western Austral- ian beef and sheep pro- cessor V&V Walsh for a reputed $100 million.
Keen column readers might recall the follow- ing third paragraph last month: “With industry pundits long suggesting CMG has its eyes on di- versifying its protein port- folio (chicken and beef?), it’ll be worth watching if Spackman, working in tandem with CMG’s new CEO Patrick Walsh, goes the slam dunk early or simply acts as Walsh’s point guard in extra time.”
Of course it needs point- ing out here, so that no one is rubbed the wrong way, that I don’t believe CMG’s Fremantle-born (me also) CEO is any re- lation to the V&V Walsh clan, headed by Peter Walsh, who own(ed) V&V Walsh.
The staged buyout over the next five years gives CMG a big foot in the red meat door (assuming you agree its big brand Linley Valley Pork can be appro- priately described as ‘the other white meat’).
CMG chairman Jim Kennedy, back in the day (late 1990s/early 2000s) the man who headed up a somewhat quirkily named Government body ‘Prime Minister’s Supermarket to Asia’, will be satisfied.
Jim has always had his eyes sharply focused on Asia and branded prod- ucts.
Of course, as most APN readers know, CMG’s Linley Valley Pork is a big brand and fresh pork from its processing plant at Wooroloo/Linley Val- ley, an hour’s drive east of Perth, has quite a toe-hold in the Singapore market.
With the V&V Walsh ac- quisition, CMG will now enjoy a multi-meat foot- print across Asia, Europe and the Middle East for a ‘guesstimated’ 1.4 million processed animals a year.
A family-owned and operated business since 1957, V&V Walsh is one of the biggest meat pro- cessors and exporters in WA, specialising in lamb and beef from its process- ing facility in Bunbury.
It also owns and oper- ates the Amelia Park Lamb & Beef brand.
I understand V&V man-
agement and staff (1000) will be retained at least at this stage, but under the oversight of a new joint board of directors, which will include CMG CEO Patrick Walsh and CMG non-executive director Rob Bransby.
That said and done, it’s now worth reflecting on a rewarding and re- vealing 2017 Pork CRC Stakeholders’ Day in Melbourne, followed by a Pork CRC/APL student workshop, topped off by three intensive days of Australasian Pig Science Association and its 16th biennial conference ‘Ma- nipulating pig production’.
With the always-engag- ing president Pat Mitch- ell stepping down for the always-debonair Stuart Wilkinson of Feedworks as APSA president lead- ing up to the 2019 APSA, the baton was handed on.
No doubt the very ca- pable Stuart will build on the legacy left by Pat and her celebrated band of predecessors, including inaugural (1987) APSA president Ray King, who this year had the honour of delivering the prestig- ious AC Dunkin Memo- rial Lecture.
Ray tackled his subject, seasonal infertility, in a somewhat too-reflective way, at least in my book, providing collated infor- mation from international and Australian projects, including those commis- sioned by the Pig Re- search and Development Corporation, Australian Pork Limited and Co-op- erative Research Centre for High Integrity Aus- tralian Pork.
Of course he highlight- ed well (and thoroughly, as Ray always does) the projects and outcomes previously presented at APSA to assist industry to alleviate the problem of seasonal infertility.
He also very capably identified a few know- ledge gaps and made some useful recommenda- tions for future research.
Although the subject
matter is of paramount importance to an indus- try so often at the mercy of incredibly challeng- ing summer production conditions, I feel the AC Dunkin Memorial Lec- ture should direct itself more to the future than the past.
Fortunately, shining the spotlight on the future, or indeed putting the way we do things under a blow- torch, is a seemingly fero- cious focus of Australa-
sian Pork Research Insti- tute Ltd, the body which will take over what Pork CRC has done so capably for so many years.
As chairman of Pork CRC and APRIL, Dennis Mutton makes no apolo- gies for wanting to drive Australia’s pork R&D sec- tor into places it has never before visited.
One of the ways he pro- poses to do that is by en- gaging with a previously untapped pool of talent and ideas, all with the in- tention of bringing new and creative thinking into the pork R&D space to hopefully increase speed of discovery and delivery of profitable outcomes.
It’s hard to argue with that, so let’s hope the ‘Mutton’ pork vision builds on an already im- pressive track record of achievement and delivers even higher-integrity Aus- tralian pork.
Eight years ago Craig Mostyn Group executive director Andrew Mostyn (left) and Ron Penn checked out this pig heart valve at the company’s Wooroloo works, the home of Linley Valley Pork. Today, Ron is on the move, believed to be leaving in February and to be replaced, as general manager Meat & Livestock, by Peter Spackman. Meanwhile, Andrew has just returned from one year’s well-earned leave, during which time he and wife Gabe drove around Australia and flew overseas. The author wonders if Andrew and Ron had a ‘heart to heart’ back in December 2009 about where CMG would be come 2017.
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WA’s beef industry is on the move. Some of the lat- est movers and shakers at Western Meat Packers Group include former Watsons and Linley Valley Pork identity Lui Rinaldi (now WMPG special projects manager); WMPG boning room manager Ettienne Snyman, formerly with Midfield Meats, Victoria; WMPG QA manager Rinda Ho, formerly with Vesco Foods; WMPG general manager Jason Spencer, for- merly with JBS and Inghams; WMPG IT manager Bill Wong, formerly with University of Western Australia; and WMPG maintenance manager Jim McGuckin, formerly with Linley Valley Pork. www.porknews.com.au
Australian Pork Newspaper, December 2017 – Page 7