Lamb market under spotlight at Eblex annual conference
29th October 2014
NSA Chief Executive Phil Stocker offers a roundup of this year's Eblex Annual Conference.
The Eblex annual conference took place on Tuesday this week. A good number of delegates made their way to the Stoneleigh Park venue, including myself and Chairman John Geldard. The title for the conference was ‘Quality products for an ever demanding marketplace’ and the theme took us through contributions from Waitrose, Tulip, HSBC, Dunbia and Shropshire beef and sheep farmer James Evans.
Duncan Sinclair, Agricultural Manager at Waitrose provided a case study of the Waitrose red meat supply chain - one thought provoking comment was that online sales have increased by 40% a year for the last 2 years. How will this growing trend affect the purchase of red meat and how do we ensure our products and presentation secure or even grow sales?
Michael Sondergaard’s presentation on Tulip confirmed much of what we saw on the recent industry trip to China, adding that by 2030 two thirds of the world’s ‘middle classes’ will live in Asia and increased meat consumption will be part of this trend.
HSBC’s Allan Wilkinson addressed the unpredictability which we are experiencing in the market. He made the case that red meat is part of a global market and that volatility will be part of the outcome whether we are selling into that global supply chain or not.
After lunch, Dunbia’s Jonathan Birnie spoke about changing attitudes and behaviours within the production, processing and retailing world (a subject he has just completed a Nuffield scholarship on), and finally James Evans, a beef and sheep farmer from Shropshire, gave a case study of his farm and how he has made real improvements in output and productivity by questioning what he does and measuring and benchmarking his grassland productivity along with his feed conversion and animal performance.
Nick Allen Eblex sector Director wrapped up and gave an outlook on what was a realistic and optimistic conference – the opportunities for success are there for those who want to take them.
The balance of levy body funds spent on knowledge transfer versus marketing is a frequent area of discussion for NSA and when John Geldard, NSA Chairman, asked a question at the conference about the effectiveness of monies spent on knowledge transfer some people using social media at the event interpreted it as John wanting more to be spent on knowledge transfer. NSA is strongly of the opinion that the bulk of all levy money collected in the UK should be used on marketing and promotion of red meat.
