This podcast is a little bit different. We're interviewing Troy, Christine's business partner, because we were asked by someone in Belgium, how they could buy wholesale protein and wholesale supplements from us. The answer was really quite interesting, so we thought we'd share. Troy gets deep about the ingredients that go into their products, the stamps of quality you should be looking for, and how to become an International Protein distributor in Australia or in a different country?
Muscle Talk - Bodybuilding podcast by International Protein
If you want your own questions answered on our bodybuilding podcast, then join our private Facebook Group and share your ideas, https://www.facebook.com/groups/muscletalk
If you'd like to learn more about International Protein, visit https://www.international-protein.com/wholesale-supplements/
A Thinkroom production.
https://www.thinkroom.com/
This podcast is a little bit different. We're interviewing Troy, Christine's business partner, because we were asked by someone in Belgium, how they could buy wholesale protein and wholesale supplements from us. The answer was really quite interesting, so we thought we'd share. Troy gets deep about the ingredients that go into their products, the stamps of quality you should be looking for, and how to become an International Protein distributor in Australia or in a different country?
Muscle Talk - Bodybuilding podcast by International Protein
If you want your own questions answered on our bodybuilding podcast, then join our private Facebook Group and share your ideas, https://www.facebook.com/groups/muscletalk
If you'd like to learn more about International Protein, visit https://www.international-protein.com/wholesale-supplements/
A Thinkroom production.
https://www.thinkroom.com/
How To Become A Reseller & Access Wholesale Supplements
Ash Horton:
How has the world renowned Christine Envall vote and IFBB professional, three times world champion, a mentor, an icon, and of course, a founding co-owner of the best supplements, money can buy International Protein. So this podcast is a little different and if you don't already know, I help International Protein within digital marketing. As part of that, we're launching a brand new website which of course needs a wholesale page. So today I'm interviewing Troy, Christine's business partner so I can create the right content, plus someone jumped onto our Aussie Muscle Guru Facebook page, and asked about distribution in Belgium. So it's a little off topic but Troy gets deep about the ingredients that go into their products, and the stance of quality that you should be looking for. I felt this was valuable information for anyone that uses supplements.
Ash Horton:
All right so Troy we recently had a phone call because I wanted to know more about the wholesale side of your business. And obviously I found that really fascinating. And it's because I got asked questions how to become an international protein distributor in a different country. So we had this conversation, it was fascinating, it was something that I thought that should really be a podcast because you got so deep on the product itself, that I thought that that would actually be a really interesting for our listeners because they can compare it to other products. And obviously you're a co-founder of International Protein. So how long have you guys been in business? Is what 20 years?
Troy:
Yeah 20, 21 years now yep.
Ash Horton:
Yeah that's awesome and you didn't like protein from the beginning you hated it.
Troy:
Yeah well I was definitely one of those things when we first come up with the idea of launching a brand with Christine, and she goes "What are the parameters that we need to meet?" I said "We want protein when people drink it, not to be talked about in a way where they say "That tastes good for protein," I want them to drink it and just say "That tastes good." Because I generally wasn't a high protein user, I'm more a chicken fish mate. When we launched in the market we were lucky there weren't too many other brands, and we seem to tick that box for really good tasting product helped us up penetrate the Australian market fairly rapidly.
Ash Horton:
Yeah Christine mentioned that in a previous podcast that I've got the Troy taste. So if it passes your taste then other people do generally really like it-
Troy:
Correct yep.
Ash Horton:
Okay let's get back to the original question we got asked "How do you become a distributor in a different country?" But I want to bring that back to Australia okay? So if people listening to this all across Australia and they're sort of toying with the idea of opening a supplement shop, whether it's physical or whether it's an online store, how does that start? How does that process work?
Troy:
Normally if they're a physical store, they might actually get a visit from one of our sales reps that are on the road. If they're an online store or they're a store that we're not aware of, or an area where a rep wouldn't normally cover might at a Northern territory places like that, if they hear about our brand and want to stock it they normally contact us over either social media, ring the office, go into our website, do a web inquiry and that would come through. We'd normally get back in contact within 24 to 48 hours if it's within the working week. And from that it's fairly easy, if a rep can't visit, we'll do a quick phone call get a sense for what their business is and then make an offer on what we think is fair for them to be able to be competitive and still for us to be able to run a business.
Ash Horton:
Very much a win-win relationship. It's a partnership where if they're not selling the product, then you're not making any money. So therefore you're kind of wanting to stimulate that as much as you can?
Troy:
Definitely because I suppose once you've been in the business for 20 or 21 years, you're more worried about selling out than what you are selling. So when you're new, you pretty much make your money by signing up new accounts and doing that first big $5,000, $7,000 order. When you've been around for 20 years, you make your money by customers coming back every second week or fourth week and re-buying the products. So it's in our advantage, not only to get a big order from a shop, but also for that shop to be able to shift that stock and re-order, we're in it for the long run with the chaos.
Ash Horton:
So you guys are very partnership oriented?
Troy:
Correct?
Ash Horton:
Yeah okay do you even sort of like JV or do things like that with people?
Troy:
Not so much in Australia when they sign up to have an account with us and it goes through our accounts department, they do sign a credit application, which isn't really a JV, but that does give them the rights to use our logos, images and marketing material to sell our product through their location. So that's somewhat a JV, but normally in Australia because they're just a reseller not a distributor for a whole country, you don't really need a JV as much as hopefully we sell them stock and they pay their bills.
Ash Horton:
So you're completely wholesale within Australia?
Troy:
Correct.
Ash Horton:
So let's say I come along, I'm wanting to open a supplement store, I pass the credit checks, I order my first product. How long does that take?
Troy:
Normally if it's Brisbane or Sydney let's say it will take probably next day or the day after latest. If you're in Melbourne it'll normally take two days, if you're in South Australia it's normally three days, and if you're in West Australia normally five days just because we're on the gold coast and that's just the shipping time. But we try to any order we get before two o'clock in the afternoon, we normally get out the same day.
Ash Horton:
Are there any sort of COVID slow downs at the moment or are you pretty reliable with your clients?
Troy:
We're very reliable even throughout the COVID lockdowns, transport was still going well and we didn't have any problems getting stocked to shops. Sometimes unfortunately in a time that a shopper ordered the stock and two days later they were in an area that had been closed down. So the stock come back to us but there was no problem actually getting the stock out to the account.
Ash Horton:
Yeah because I feel like a lot of companies out there are really using it as an excuse aren't they? But trucks haven't stopped driving?
Troy:
No.
Ash Horton:
Okay so I guess my next question is why would someone want to choose your products versus another protein suppliers? Because it's such a saturated market what makes you guys so good?
Troy:
I suppose at time in the market, the fact we're very trusted. I don't have data for this, but I would claim one of the lowest return or complaint issues of any company almost anywhere in the world. Obviously stores want to sell you the stock, they don't want you to bring it back, and I like the taste, and I like the mixability and I like anything, they just want to sell you to stock have a happy customer, have the happy customer come back and hopefully buy the stock again. Also we have a very large footprint in Australia. So if you're a new account, it means that people walking into the store will already know your brand. So even if you happen to have a store manager that unusually hasn't heard of the brand, people walking into the store will have heard of the brand.
Ash Horton:
And obviously that's a marketing tactic where we actually create the demand first to drive people through into the store. So whatever partner you sort of get we actually support that in marketing? Okay and the ingredients too, you use really premium quality ingredients for example Whey from New Zealand. So tell us a little bit about that.
Troy:
For our brand we like to use Grass-Fed Wheys. So 90% of the Whey that we get is actually from New Zealand, we do buy some New Zealand Whey surprisingly from Tasmania as well, but it happens to be owned by NZMP. So it comes to us as a New Zealand dairy product but from within Australia.
Ash Horton:
I guess it's the same temperature isn't it?
Troy:
Correct yeah. When we first started using it, New Zealand and Australian Wheys were straight ahead of anybody in the market for how clean they were, how well they were made, and how well they mixed in for sports products where you're just adding a flavour and drinking it. A lot of countries have actually caught up with the technology, but we still like the New Zealand and Australian Wheys purely not only because we're obviously Australian based, but also because they're so creamy and natural tasting that you don't have to use a lot of flavours to hide the natural Whey flavour because of those creamy notes. It actually compliments our flavours.
Troy:
So even if we tried to substitute out for another one, we'd have to redevelop the flavour because we haven't put a lot of things to hide the natural flavour in there if that makes sense? Where people that have obviously used a lot of American based products in that, where they do use very heavy flavour systems, they will obviously notice that even when they come to Wales, that whilst the flavours are punchy and nice, they're not over the top sweet, they're not over the top crazy flavoured.
Ash Horton:
So I guess all the cows they've got sun to their backs, chewing on grass and ....
Troy:
Correct what you find especially whether be New Zealand or either even Tasmania is there's enough rainfall year round to keep the cows on pasture. So they don't have to be grain fed, the benefit with not having to be grain fed is in a lot of countries where cows are grain fed all throughout winter and quite often substituted with grain for the rest of the year, they normally have to give antibiotics, penicillin, things like that which can carry through to the milk.
Ash Horton:
Which gives you your bad taste which means you need to over flavour is that right?
Troy:
The bad taste quite often comes from the pasture, but obviously in Australia it's not required to do a penicillin test on any dairy product, because we're not allowed to use penicillin on our cattle that can come through to something that you would eat because you could become penicillin resistant. Obviously in America it's required on dairy, when you export it to do a penicillin test they use penicillin and bovine antibiotics on the cattle to help keep them healthy from eating grains it tends to inflame their stomach lining. So the idea is to keep the cows healthy as you can so you can get the milk. You don't need any of that in New Zealand or Australia where these things are banned. So the good thing is you know that the source of dairy, not only is the cattle being treated reasonably well, but also there's no hormones as in bovine growth, hormone, antibiotics, or penicillin coming through to your dairy product.
Ash Horton:
And you said ends it in P before, and that's the old Fontera right?
Troy:
Correct.
Ash Horton:
What's NZMP stand for?
Troy:
Well it's funny everybody in anywhere you go anywhere in the world and I've traveled to a lot of places, if you say NZMP which is Fontera's new logo as of about three years ago, they look at you blank and don't know what you're talking about. Then you say Fontera and they go "Oh yeah the guys from New Zealand."
Ash Horton:
I'm a caveman I don't even know who NZMP is.
Troy:
So they actually re rebranded themselves about three years ago with NZMP. It's probably been a good move from... Well definitely hasn't affected their sales yeah, but I don't think everybody's caught up to the marketing behind the exit NZMP yet.
Ash Horton:
So my understanding is that they actually audit your company as well?
Troy:
If you use their logo like what we do on our... I mean I charge WPI, they will actually come and audit the amount of product you're buying, your batch documents, how much you've used. So obviously if you're buying let's say seven 10 tonne in a year and you've produced 38 tonne of a product that has a NZMP logo on it, there'll be a lot of questions asked, then they'll ask you to remove your packaging from the shelves.
Ash Horton:
Yeah so it's like a stamp of quality or something isn't it. So what other products do you use Troy?
Troy:
Every way we can where we can use a branded ingredient and the company allows us to use their logo as people are very aware with our range, we will put that logo on the tub so people are aware that we're using it, also with that NZMP, that company will then want to audit us. So we believe in using those products-
Ash Horton:
The best branded products you can possibly find as opposed to just...
Troy:
... Yeah because yeah a lot of the listeners might not actually understand the supply chain of raw ingredients. You can get one raw ingredient that has the same name as another and it costs $2, and the branded one costs $17 but it's got... It's standardised to a certain active level, so it's not just the name it's actually got that active amount. And normally within the rules of the .... food rules in Australia, we will add the product to the dosage limit that the company recommends to actually get the active effect. In some cases we don't quite reach those limits but very rarely, just because the food law says you're not allowed to put that much in, so we can in every other country but just not here.
Troy:
Also quite often with the branded ingredients is they'll do their best to extract the nasty flavours and stuff. So the $2 ingredient will might taste like bark, and the $17 ingredient actually when you mix it up and is almost a neutral tasting water. So obviously when you add that to a pre train or anything, you're not fighting hard with a lot of chemicals and a lot of artificial sweeteners and stuff to cover those nasty nights, will work with everything the better your base that you start with the better the finish.
Ash Horton:
And you guys originally started the company with the intention to actually create something that was much better and a premium quality to start with. Obviously Christine was pretty focused, in fact you were a bodybuilder in your time weren't you? So you guys were actually all about results and also creating something premium but making it really good taste. So I guess that drove you to buy the quality ingredients.
Troy:
And look back when we started working on the first three products that we launched, we're talking about back in the days when there was Weeder 10,000 I think it was called on the market, where you got 10,000 calories you've added the half litre of ice cream and the five bananas they said on the packet. There was [inaudible 00:12:38] had grown Max's was only about two years old. There was balance that Peter McCarthy owned that I think he'd just been just sold off to Weider. So when we thought this up, I think when we launched it might be nine or 11 different brands in Australia, now that would be well over 500. So we launched then when Christine was getting ready for shows back in those days, a lot of Fontera 25 kilos Whey bags and 20 kilos Whey bags sitting in the kitchen as such, making up her own little concoctions.
Troy:
She worked with a company back then called Essential Flavours that made some very premium flavours, and she'd make up little concoctions and say "Oh man this tastes like chocolate mousse why isn't this on the market?" because of the old drink, she used almost burned your throat as you drank them. Well back in those days, most supplements were developed by a chemists. They weren't developed by food scientists were food scientists thinking about not only the actives, but thinking about the finished product, the texture, the flavour but a chemists gets on the white board works at the perfect formulation, it's not their concern necessarily whether that's palatable or not. So when you say "I can't drink this three times a day you're killing me" goes "But look at the white board it's showing you the great results."
Troy:
Yeah so obviously when you go into the marketplace and also when you go to the wider market, you need to tick a few of those boxes. You can't just say "Oh this is really active but it's like drinking vinegar," You have to say "It's really active, it's reasonably palatable, the texture's okay." But the market shifted a hundred years in five years sets if that makes sense. Yeah once supplement in Australia really exploded probably over a seven year period, everybody lifted their game. You're not safe with photocopied labels on shelves anymore and all of those sorts of things.
Ash Horton:
Photocopied labels interesting. So tell me coming back to the branded products, tell me what the difference between a standard green tea and a Teavago is?
Troy:
Yep so standard grain tea it isn't necessarily where all of the crop that it's been pulled from is from the one farm or from a standardised farm. It'll be from whatever farm has stock at the time to supply the factory. Then the product's made and yes it's green tea, but it isn't maDE and it doesn't account for seasonal variations, it doesn't account for flavour notes. It's just made and the product is what the product is. It may be at the strength that you think you're getting, or it might be a 10th of the strength you're getting, but they don't guarantee a standardisation behind that. When you get something like Teavago, they will only pull from certain farms that will make stock at a certain time of year when it hits the strength that it's meant to hit, then they will actually do the tests and say "This is Teavago [inaudible 00:15:10] we guarantee everything is at these levels." So I suppose you know what you're getting.
Ash Horton:
All right so let's switch this up away bit, let's say I've become a shop. How are you going to support me in selling products?
Troy:
There's a few different ways that we can support you, and this has morphed or changed over the last probably 10 or 15 years. Now a lot of shops very active themselves on social media, very active with their own marketing team and they're happy to run with the ball themselves. And that's great it makes our life easy and we just help in whatever way they actually reach out and say "Hey would you guys help?" But what we normally do with accounts like it, and also if we think it will be of aid we contact local gyms in the area, we have athletes that we sponsor, or reps go and do tastings and recommend that they go down to the local shop that we've just stocked.
Troy:
So we try to get the sales in there, we try to educate the public so when they go into the store, they already recognise the brand have tasted the brand and go "Hi I'm happy to buy that" so it becomes an easy sale transfer for the new account. We also have sample sachets within reasons for accounts we can't get to. And a lot of our reps probably 50% of their time is actually spent staff training now.
Ash Horton:
So the more information you give them the more they understand.
Troy:
Correct so when somebody comes in and ask the question in store, whether it's about our product or somebody else's product, if we have given... if we have done our job properly, the staff in the shop where will feel comfortable enough discussing our product with a customer who's asking fairly technical questions, and the more comfortable they feel the more they'll obviously recommend it, and then the better advice they give to the client. All of those things sort of I suppose, come to that little bubble of marketing as such, while some people look at them as direct marketing and not direct marketing, we do find between really the tastings and the staff training, is the key to making it a success in the new shop.
Ash Horton:
That's sales 101 put the product in the person's hands right? They tasted it and then once they taste it, I mean it's a bit from my point of view and I probably a little bit biased, but it's probably some of the best I've tasted, but once you've tasted it yourself-
Troy:
Yeah and that's it and obviously if you walk into a shop and you're a new user or user looking for something, and you walk in and say "Hey I've tried this I've had it a couple of times I'd like to try something different," if the shop staff's comfortably explaining the ingredients and understands them, then obviously that's a winners... Well because not only is the shop staff normally going to hopefully recommend your product or explain it to the customer, but when they explain it positively in a sequence that makes sense, then the customer's confidence.
Ash Horton:
... And of course a lot of them use it themselves because they know it so well they recommend it. Okay so let's switch it out of Australia now and let's talk about... Because on the Aussie Muscle Guru Facebook page, we've actually been asked and that actually drove this podcast, but it actually got asked "How do I get distribution rights and to Europe?" So how does that work? How does that process-
Troy:
Yep so for a lot countries having an Australian dairy export license, and you need the dairy to export all of the Whey products, whether it be WPI for us I may not charge WPI superior Whey synergy, anything with either over 20% Whey in it, you need a specific export license granted by the Department of Agriculture of Australia. So for about 50% of the countries in the world if you have that export license, the person's just got to have an import license at the other end and it just gets shipped to them easy days. So it's a matter of that person contacting us, or sometimes us going out and finding them at expos, getting a connection from another country with that business with somebody in another country, pretty much just starting up business. And normally what we do there is we just make sure we haven't got another distributor who's selling in that area, or another distributor in that country, because normally what we have done to this point in most countries we only have one distributor.
Troy:
And what we do then is if any of any other person wants to become a distributor, we connect them with their current distributor and say "Hey if you are happy to work with them or JV, or they look after the North of the country and you look after the South that's between you and them to workout, we just keep on dealing with you and that obviously grows their their business. It's the opposite to what a lot of countries supplement brands do, where they just go for anybody who wants to buy it. But we'll find that loyalty's been repaid we're just the little Australian brand that... Yeah we have some very solid-
Ash Horton:
You're not that little buddy yeah you like to thank you are but you're not.
Troy:
We actually do have some very solid over 12 year relationships with distributors now, and I can fly to countries even like Malaysia and my little distributor they will pick me up and these kids wearing International Protein hats, [inaudible 00:19:20] Weiser and International Protein shirts. So some other countries it's a little bit more difficult. Some countries require you to register all of the products, some only require you to register the brand, that can take anything from three months to three years.
Ash Horton:
So you've been jumping through these hoops for a long time with multiple different countries. So would it be fair to say that you try and make the distributors life really easy on the other hand?
Troy:
[inaudible 00:19:45] definitely even for those really technically hard countries and Brazil's one, Thailand's one, yeah I've probably toured the hardest countries in the world where we export to both of them. 90% of the actual heavy lifting is done by my technical team, my quality team that has to supply all the paperwork, all the flow charts, all of the what we call piffs and certificates of analysis. A little bit of the other work with the registrations from the other side obviously has to be done by the importer because they're responsible for the product once it's in the country, but 90% of the work's done by us. And we don't shy away from that at all. As I said Brazil probably took two and a half years, and now we go quite well there
Ash Horton:
Do you have a minimum purchase required? Or do you kind of grow that distributed from the ground up?
Troy:
What we do grow that distributor from the ground up, we find that most people sit around the three to five pallet order when they start. But really if it's A$5,000 to A$12,000 that somewhere a starting point-
Ash Horton:
And that's Australian dollars?
Troy:
That's Australian dollars yep AUD and they can test the market, they can get it out to a few accounts, you have enough stock. The reason we sort of set it there it says about A$1,800 in micro pathogen and paperwork phase, just for the partner agriculture to let us ship the product. So obviously if the person wants to put a A$1,000 order in, even though I'm happy to promote business in another country, it's going to cost me A$1,800 dollars before I pay technical staff or anything just in paying the government for their end of this. Yeah normally around that A$5,000 to A$12,000 worth, we're happy to absorb that A$1,800.
Troy:
And the good thing is we are what we found with the 16 countries we export to at the moment, normally start off with about that three to five pellet order. Next one they go to a ten pellet order which is a 20 foot container. And then pretty much three weeks after that landed, they go to a 21 foot... Sorry a 21 pallet order which is a 40 foot container. Obviously once you're up into the container, the A$1,800 dollar fee because it's A$1,800 dollars whether you do five tubs or your 40 foot container, but you have to raise the same documents. That becomes negligible then not to sound cocky, but whilst siting countries up when you're an Australian brand can be quite hard, we don't have a government system where they pay for the first two years of advertising, they give you a 25% tax rebate for exporting dairy goods from Australia.
Troy:
Yeah we play on what they call that level playing field, but we're the only ones at that level which a lot of exporters will probably have a slight gripe about. Any country where we have found a distributor who understands our brand and is willing to put the work in, we haven't failed regardless of price, struggles to get it in. As soon as we landed it tends to go off because we're selling to the people that really care about what they're eating.
Ash Horton:
So tell me when some of it comes as a distributor, what kind of support can you give them outside of the paperwork and the documentation actually get it into the country? Do you actually help them get it to market as well? Or is it totally on their side of their fence?
Troy:
At the moment most of distributors apart from some small advertising rebates for volume purchases, and that which anybody who's listening who's in the distribution game will understand what I mean by that. Yeah normally some of our team will go and visit the country, sometimes we do sponsor some well-known, impressive looking IFW pros, and a lot of countries where bodybuilding isn't big like America or even Australia, you take 140 kilo pro over there in shape, it's its own market approach because that'll put them on the national news, they will talk to [inaudible 00:23:04]. So we do as much as we can and only what we try to do with visit most countries either two to four times a year. So we'll go there as a little team, even down to the point that [inaudible 00:23:14] industry but it can vouch for this yeah I'll get in the car do an eighteen hour drive with him and visit every little shop that might only have three tubs of my product at that time, they shake their hand thanking for taking him on.
Troy:
And next time I go back there half the shop will be International Protein because they haven't had somebody do that before. So there's the normal marketing, and the digital stuff, and all that stuff that really everybody does fairly well these days, but that old school 1950s style get on a plane or getting in a car and go shake somebody's hand and meet their family-
Ash Horton:
It develops real relationships.
Troy:
... Yeah in a lot of that is actually gold.
Ash Horton:
Yeah okay so tell me the difference. If I was living in Europe and I wanted to... and I was looking at all the different products that I could bring in, why would I want to choose Australian versus American because there's so many Americans products?
Troy:
Look and that's probably a million dollar question. The way I suppose I can explain this the best, apart from the fact that Australian product comes with the department of Agriculture seals, all the testing is done by third party people, and that... but let's say most big American brands are totally trustworthy as well because you wouldn't risk a billion dollar business. We're all somewhat on a level playing field, our flavour systems are somewhat different than the American ones because we'll develop them for the Australian taste buds, the American companies obviously develop them for the American taste buds and then ship them out to other countries. So some countries we find like Thailand and even India, our flavours connect with the people a lot more than what the American flavours do much the same as the other-
Ash Horton:
I'm assuming the American flavours are a lot sweeter it's a massive assumption but I'm I wrong?
Troy:
They are a lot sweeter and they're also I suppose if you could pitch a Dr Pepper compared to Coke, Coke obviously sales well in Australia Dr Pepper so-so. So what you will find is a lot of American vanillas have that almond D back note to them because that's what they really like in America and what they're used to. In Australia people just don't like that flavour we like more than vanilla bean custard flavour. But also I suppose normally in most countries that I export to I'm the only Australian brand. So whilst it's probably not the greatest marketing strategy, being the only brand from one country tends to make that pond a little bit bigger for you, because there are certain amount of people that either want to buy Australian and haven't tried it before trust it I suppose. You're sort of riding in your own lane even though you competing against the Americans, you're still marketed as an Australian product and you're the only one in that market.
Ash Horton:
Yeah but what about the complexity of buying American versus Australian? Is Australia a bit more complex but the products a lot better or-
Troy:
Well the thing with-
Ash Horton:
... regulations?
Troy:
... Regulations they're different so obviously quite often in... or what most people listening to this, if they've used sports supplements or somewhat have read anything on Google or reviews, they'll realise in Australia, the food standards doesn't allow you to have what you call a proprietary blend. In America you're allowed to do a proprietary blend. So you can put 12 aminos together and say "Here's your 18 grams serve of aminos" but you don't have to declare how much of each aminos in there. So let's say glycine being a cheap amino that some people might use the fluffy out the formulation because it keeps the price down, might therefore make up 40% of those of all of that mix. In Australia you can't have a proprietary blend you need to list out everything that's in there, and you also have to list in order of most abundant to least abundant.
Troy:
So obviously our labels are a lot more transparent, and people will also notice on your labels to be Australian compliant. You need to have a per serve and a per a hundred grams. You'll notice some of the American labels they only have a per serve. So you will find when you're trying to compare apples with apples, it's easy with Australian products because when you're looking for percentages or anything like that, obviously you read the a hundred gram column and the a hundred means it's a hundred automatically gives you the percent. So if you're 82 grams of protein in 100 grams, you'll automatically hopefully most people just connect that dot and go 82%.
Ash Horton:
So let's get into the regulations, now from my understanding is that America allows their own companies to regulate their own products, versus Australia has to use a third party sources is that right?
Troy:
In some cases and quite often there's very similar documents obviously to export from America, or Europe, or Australia. But you will find in Europe and Australia, all of those documents have to be either signed off, verified or raised by a third party person. In Australia in-house micro and pathogen testing is not recognised. So it's nice to do for your own knowledge, but if you take that to court or to get an export document, they will just laugh in your face. Okay so you have to go to a third-party NATA accredited lab that keeps its accreditation according to how good it does it's testing. So if you follow that thought in Vietnam when we export there, they hold the stock on the port, they take a bag, cut a bag open of their picking, test it and make sure that our test matches theirs on the Wharf test.
Troy:
If it doesn't questions are asked because they're using a NATA accredited lab in Vietnam as well. So it's not in the NATA accredited labs interest over here because it only keeps its accreditations according to how accurate it is, and no complaints and paper working food or any other sort of industry that I'll understand CARS and nonconformances, if you're not accredited lab you don't want corrective actions or nonconformances raised by a government organization against your lab. So it cuts out uncle Toby's or anybody else wanting to run along and use you next week. So it would be very hard to believe that there was a relationship to benefit the company when connected to a NATA approved lab. So that test result is genuine unless there's been a mistake somewhere and it needs to be retested, but within reason then they're not fudging the test in any way to benefit me to be able to export because that could lose their license.
Troy:
That's [inaudible 00:28:44] and the money, a lot of American companies are allowed to actually register their own lab within their own business. Obviously you have to be big enough to build the lab and that we're talking about big exporters here. And the testing provided is actually done from within their own lab.
Ash Horton:
So it could be accurate.
Troy:
Well quite often it is but then... Quite often yeah and it's not just me saying this anybody can obviously Google anything that's lawsuits that have been raised or things like that. But quite often those tests don't quite often match up to what the product is. For a lot of people who were really worried about what they sell and their reputation, having something come from Australia and that's why it's so popular in China, it's they understand that the government is really the people that are responsible for letting that. The government doesn't want the Australian dairy industry to stop because you've exported to a country, and now falsified your documents it's just nonsensical to think that they would do that.
Troy:
And also if anybody's ever been involved in any food compliance or anything like that, they take it seriously because they're not only looking after our little company, they're looking at another 10,000 little companies and also within that a couple of billion dollar companies, that would also not be able to export if all exports of dairy will stop from Australia. Unfortunately with Australia, we just don't have the population and the power to play those games where we say "Well you will never going to stop us exporting because we're that big that we'd crush you. With Australia we have to follow the rules and do the right thing. And it's actually good even myself when I go overseas, and I'm in a country where I might have some concerns about counterfeits or mostly in those countries I'll call them quality duplicates, I will look for Australian made product that I know is genuine from Australia because I also trust it. And that won't necessarily even be a product I've made, that will be let's just say say Manuka honey, milk powder, anything like that because I also understand the systems.
Ash Horton:
All right so just to wrap this up, this is fascinating stuff by the way because we've got quite deep on that whole exporting, how you support your customers. We didn't really touch on labeling, but labeling must be a big part of that. And you guys must be hugely experienced in that it's ever make that helped businesses into Europe again. And he said one of the major things is that people screw up their labeling and it can actually seen companies broke pretty quickly if they've seen a great shipment over and it just falls flat. So with labeling you guys got huge experience that you can support the integrations in there?
Troy:
Yeah definitely at the moment, three of the countries we import into require an over sticker. So the over sticker everything else looks the same as it does on a shelf here. And the over sticker on the back is in their language, all of the values and warnings that should be according to their food regulations. Most other countries we can just import the Australian product to, we might have to put a sticker on lead or something that's translated into the local language with the local import license. And that we're sort of lucky at the moment that we don't have any countries that specifically need a whole new label printed, but we are able to do that and we're more than open to doing that. Obviously in that discussion there'd be some volume requirements because... but it's all we got to spend A$70,000 on packaging..
Troy:
If the person says "I want to order three pallets across 10 different flavours, five different products" we obviously we're going to have a little more serious discussion. But if we're up and going with somebody or somebody seriously talking about decent volume, we're more than happy to reprint most of our 1.25 and two kilos sizes, things like that that are all digital print now anyway. Digital printing has come a long way it looks a lot fancier. Yeah it might even just be a discussion "Hey let's just focus at the start onto this size because it's the easiest to reprint a small run of labels just to fit your country."
Ash Horton:
I mean I think China for example you just put an over label on and that's almost preferred because they can read it in their own language. But at the same time they want to actually see that it's a genuine Australian label.
Troy:
Well that's 100% right. The countries where we have to do the over sticker before we ship out, which at the moment Brazil and Thailand, I could have reprinted the packaging because they taking decent volume. And when I mentioned that they told me "No I'll stick with your Aussie packaging and just put the sticker on, because then everybody here knows it hasn't been made within the country and it's a counterfeit," I'm like "Oh okay that makes sense." China's a little bit easier when it lands at the port, they do the sticker at the port for you. So we just ship it like a normal shipment and they look after and it gets to the distributor and everybody's happy.
Ash Horton:
I suppose you've just got to see the design across to them.
Troy:
No they actually do it all themselves, look after it a little bit tricky with Brazil and Thailand, both is obviously we print the stickers here and apply it to all the packaging before it goes specific for that flavour, and we just need to be fairly careful because we don't read the language that we've clearly labeled the outside of the box. But we get people from within the country to actually make that label designed for us. And we just printed here because whilst Christine's speaks Portuguese and probably could help out there, we don't have anybody here who speaks Thai really well yet.
Ash Horton:
All right so just to wrap this up as I said fascinating stuff, is there anything else we should add to the mix? Is there any other information?
Troy:
Yeah if anybody hears this and they are from a country where I'm not already importing into, please feel free to go to www.international-protein.com, send a web inquiry and I'm more than open to have a discussion. If it doesn't go anywhere it doesn't, but I'm still happy to spend the time to do it, and fingers crossed it does go somewhere.
Ash Horton:
Yeah there's a... On the new website... We're launching a new website at the moment and there's actually going to be a specific wholesale page where they can connect directly to you Troy as opposed to some of your staff.
Troy:
Yep.
Ash Horton:
Yeah cool saying that what then results in a phone call.
Troy:
Yeah definitely normally results in a couple of emails back and forth, we work out a time that's best to call and obviously if it's Thailand call online, if it's half the rest of the world I'll call on WhatsApp, if it's China I call on them WeChat, I'm not so much into the social media platforms, but at the moment I'm running about 30 because of the export.
Ash Horton:
Yep very good hey thank you very much Troy I really appreciate you coming on the show.
Troy:
Definitely thanks guys.
Ash Horton:
Words of wisdom if you like what you've heard, recognise that these tips are free. So show your support by becoming a loyal International Protein customer by jumping online, hunt that product down and hit that buy now button. So once again like, share and subscribe to our podcast so we can continue to bring you these episodes from our one and only Aussie Muscle Guru, three times world champion Christine Envall.