Neat Meat’s Simon Eriksen doesn’t mince his words | EP 88

Neat Meat founder Simon Eriksen reflects on 25 years of building one of New Zealand’s best-known premium meat businesses, from running deliveries out of a 1986 Subaru Legacy to supplying supermarkets, restaurants and My Food Bag.

Simon shares how Neat Meat challenged the traditional meat supply chain, why he launched the SpeckleBeef programme, and what he’s learned from decades of backing himself in business through highs and lows.

We also discuss the future of red meat, pressure on rural communities, the spread of carbon forestry, whether Kiwis are being priced out of quality beef and lamb, and what Simon believes needs to change to keep farming viable for the next generation.

Useful links
www.neatmeat.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You know, I look at Hawke's Bay, you know, in the last wee while three farms got sold. And the forestry guys will say, well, they were, you know, grade six, sevens and so forth. They might have been, but most of the farm wasn't. You know, I don't have a problem with farming steep country like that. That that's not suitable for grazing or it's too hard. But that flat rolling stuff, you know, that I think IKEA have brought down in Hawks Bay, it's just, it's just wrong. You know, it's it's it's taking away um livelihoods, it's taking away beef and sheep production. So 36,000 hectares a year, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Hi everybody. This week on the Federated Farmers Podcast, I'm sitting down with Simon Erickson, founder and owner of Neat Meat, best known for its harmony brand and increasingly recognised for its speckle beef program, which is built on the speckle park breed. Neat Meat marks an impressive 25 years in business this month. So we use that milestone as a chance to go right back to the beginning. From Simon's farming upbringing in rural Gisbon through to him building a premium meat brand that's evolved through some pretty turbulent times, including the GFC and COVID. Along the way, we dig into his early misadventures over in the UK, including what he describes as a bit of CV modification, and how he started a successful wild pork business before returning to New Zealand. We also unpack how Neat Meat began and how Simons continually tweaked the business model over the years to drive more consistency, both for farmers supplying the stock and for customers wanting reliable quality and pricing. He also shares his views on the changing face of farming, the pressure facing rural New Zealand, the rise of carbon forestry, on which he has some pretty strong opinions, and where the red meat sector might head next. Simon, thanks heaps for joining us on the Federated Farmers Podcast, mate. Appreciate it. Pleasure, Ben. Good to be here. For those who haven't come across Neat Meat before, can you tell us a bit about the business including who you supply and where you source your product from?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

The business itself is is is just on 25 years this month. You know, at the very beginning we were quite singular, as often businesses are, you know, tinkering in one but one area. But over the course of time, we we're in different channels now. Um we're across food service, um we're in retail under the Harmony brand. Uh we do a bit of exporting. Um we do um we do some manufacturing, um, but we also supply a company called My Foo Bag as well. And so the great thing about that is it creates a bit of a ballasting effect where if one channel dips, you know, typically well, what happened happens is another one, um, another one sort of lifts, if you like, just to keep a bit of stability in the business.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

So just to be clear, you're you're selling direct to restaurants.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah, yes, we are. Yeah, yeah. Um, I suppose that again, that's probably what that that's our IP, I suppose, in some ways, is that we have that last mile relationship. So we're we're in there with the influencers, if you like. So uh restaurants is if anything is is our IP. It is how we started the business, and it is uh uh very much the the bed, the garden where we create um brands and storytelling all starts. Um and a lot of the work we do with chefs to cultivate this and their staff in terms of telling the story to to customers and to restaurants and everything. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Am I right that you used to sell online directly to the public, to consumers?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah, yeah, we did. For me, it's already always been about de-risking your business, you know, as I sort of touched on. The uh online was probably one of those uh really dreamy um things I've always wanted, and in fact, I've had two attempts at it now. The problem is it's just like another business, but it's online, and you've got to run it as a separate business, not just as a thing that it coexists inside your operation. Um, so in effect, I think we were spending um 70% of our marketing budget on one percent of our turnover. Again, you think you're gonna recover more margin by going direct, but the reality is the cost to serve in any channel is differs, and certainly uh online home delivery is very, very expensive business to operate.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. At its core, what is the problem that Neat Meat is trying to solve for farmers and you know the end users?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think um look, I think the the long-standing issue for farmers um is probably consistency, right? Um in price, you know, you you you start the journey with an animal and two years later you realise its value. And in that time, so much can happen. We're only a small part of the whole ecosystem, but our our you know, our dream is always to try and control a lot of those variables, and in doing so, meaning that we can control the pricing at the very end and work backwards. And so ideologically, it's trying to give this farmer the best price possible and the most consistent price. And a good example of that would be Taubow Beef. We ran that program for some time and and we woke up one day and said, we need to promise some certainty to these farmers. So we said, whatever happens, we'll never go below six bucks for your beef, knowing that they had hard and fast costs and they couldn't increase their output. So for us, that was a really good test to see if we could survive that. Um, the great thing about that, in that time, beef went sort of up and down. I mean, let's be honest, six bucks isn't much these days, but you know, where it was bouncing around was sort of late falls, you know, up to 650 and back down again. And so, you know, we thought, well, let's teach ourselves to do that. So it's creating certainty at the farmers, um, but also from the from the consumer's end or the restaurant or whatever, we've got to give them some stability and quality and also pricing. So you're trying to balance those two things together, and that's it takes it's taken a few years to um to manage, and we still haven't nailed it completely. And it's it it'll be a it'll be a journey forever, I think. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

What's your can you just actually explain the process from FarmGate through to the you know the person sitting there eating eating it on their plate? Who who does it go through?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Um Yeah, I mean it depends what program you're talking about, you know. So like everybody else, we'll we'll part we partner up with a lot of the meat processes around New Zealand, so AFCO and um Taylor Preston and Alliance and Ovation and so forth. And you've got to do that because New Zealand's got a seasonality issue, you know, certain parts of the country will turn off and on, all the rest of it. Um so we we um we'll buy and buy and market and we're pretty good at it because we've got enough scale and our partnerships are pretty solid. But then beyond that, we also have our own program stuff as well. So, you know, like the Taupo Beef or Coastal Lamb or Um the Speckle Beef program or whatever, we have certainty of supply, and then we can take that certainty of supply and quality and to a f and and to a point pricing, and we can pair up with restaurants about that and sort of set at least set the next three to six months some sort of consistency around that, around pricing. And will you and you'll put that through one of the processes? Yep. Yep. So again, depending on what programme we're talking about, they'll go through, yeah, we'll we'll work with their livestock guys and operations, go through the plant, it gets processed at to our specifications, and then it'll go back to one of our three sites, so Queenstown, Christchurch, or Auckland. Um, and from there it gets reprocessed and distributed out to the retailer or the restaurant or or or the My Food Bag or Herb. Yeah. How many staff have you got? Uh we've got 120. We've got 120 staff between um yeah, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Queenstown. Yeah. And are you based in Auckland? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Where whereabouts is your um your office up there? It's in Bel Airf. But when I'm in an audience or wherever I'm in New Zealand, I always refer to say I'm from Guzbon. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, keeps things nice and clean. Uh no one ever hates anyone from Gusburn. I moved out when I was 14 and I'm now 52. So um, but yeah, no, well, Auckland's great. I mean, we've been there now for 25 years, and and Neat Meat's been there for 25 years. It's it's a good place to operate from. It's a big city.

unknown 8:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

That's like me. People ask where I'm from. I I say Tiako, north north of Braglan. North Hamilton. Yeah, not Hamlet. Yeah, no, no, no. Not even Ragland, because people just think you're happy. Um where do you believe that you're creating the most value? And and then on the other side, where are you sort of eliminating cost and and inefficiencies?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, I mean, look, I think the um the the value chains are really it's a it's a it's a continual improvement, right? Um if you're not driving value into what you're offering, then you kind of eventually I think run out of runway. Because you're always in search of a of a you've got to always look for better pricing, otherwise the music stops and it kind of all over. So, you know, creating of brands and stories behind it, the partnerships that we've created with with farmers right the way through, the partnerships we create with the consumer and everyone in between. So that value chain is very, very important. So there's that part, and then there's the what can we do with the product, and how much of the carcass can we utilize, and how much more value can we add to that part? I mean, anyone anyone can sell an eye, fill it, the the it that's only one percent of the carcass. It's how do we sell the rest of it? How many, you know, what sort of burgers can we create out of 30% of the carcasses might be going to you know, somewhere that can we can add value to? So that's that's uh as I say, that's a bit of a constant, is trying to continue to improve the you know the value, the value chain.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

You talked about your you know different programs. The speckle beef program is is really interesting. Yeah. Can you explain what that program is? What was the gap you saw um that led to you guys creating that?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Um well you you i I it's funny because you're always looking for a gap, I think, because that's where the opportunities are. And I and if you go back 23 years now, it's when we st where we got involved with Angus Pure and kicked that off with the Angus Association, and that was really us stumbling around in the dark. There wasn't a single brand in market, and um Angus Pure was the first one. It was heavily supported by the Angus Association, and with that, all the partners, you know, the farmers that are part of that, whether the bulls or the and so um you know the market just accepted it and adopted it because it wanted something. It made us look like we were really good marketers, but in real, in reality, it was just the market was needing something. Um, each time we've done it, created a brand or been part of the inception of a brand, you go at it thinking, yep, it's ticked all the boxes uh when actually often it hasn't, you know, and and what I mean by that is it it's limited by you know number of animals or market, or it's it's too high-end, or um the farmers aren't really behind, or the processes not behind it, you know, or there's just not enough money in it for everybody. And so you've got to think, well, actually, or you know, what can we what can we find and do that actually hits more mass market? It actually ticks all the boxes, and this is where we've landed with speckled beef. So speckled beef is the brand behind speckle park. Uh thing I like about that is that it the gap there is that no one else is involved in speckle park. It's a relatively unknown and quite new, new, new breed. Um it's it ticks all the boxes in my mind, through from being from a dairy farmer, let's just say it's crossing, it goes very well with a dairy cross. Um, it's good gestation, it's a long neck, easy berth, all the things that a dairy, you know, heifer likes um gets to, you know, from a rarer's perspective, it gets to 100 kilos really quickly. And then from that 100 kilos up, it actually is a really efficient animal too. You know, the studies have shown that they consume 20% less feed, say, than other traditional breeds for the same weight gain. So there's a lot of cool things, and then of course, that's all well and good, great for the farmer, but what's good for the consumer? So that's where that, you know, the the fast-growing, it's a very tender meat, very soft, tender meat. Um, and it lays down a lot of marbling. And look, what we've learned in the last 10, 15, 20 years from the waggy guys is that marbling, you know, you buy with your eyes, and marbling is quite an attractive thing, but it actually is a real strong attribute in its eating. So, you know, speckled beef has landed for me on all those things. And then, of course, the processing partnership's key as well. So, you know, we work with Alliance on this and um they do a fantastic job of processing it. So, you know, it it just ticks those boxes that it might have been missing in previous branded programs.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Is the speckle beef, uh speckle park beef, is that going in solely to restaurants or are you selling that to consumers as well through retailers?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Um we often get asked by consumers, but we took the online down, so now I just get my inbox inundated with people ordering that way. Um look, it's it's it right now it's predominantly going through restaurants because we're we're we're selling as much as the producing. We're in Fiji now, so we've set up in Fiji, and again it's been a real hit in the high-end resorts over there. Um we sell through, you know, like so Gilmores sell it into their trade. So everything from the state cuts through to the briskets and everything is um, you know, it's it's it's still got a lot, but the reality is as we grow the program, and I think this next year we've sort of got about 12,000 animals. But in two years' time, you know, we've got upwards of 45,000 in the system now. So domestically, you can't can't keep up with that, you know, and and that's a good problem to have. That again, that forces us into the which we're doing now is looking at all the opportunities overseas. And and the the great thing about having brands and menus is that's transported around the world, whether it be digitally or someone travelling through New Zealand. So the exposure of the brand is now featuring overseas, and so we're now getting calls, so we're sort of betting in now, okay, let's look to next season how many animals we've got coming through, where we what are we gonna, you know, what markets we're gonna target and so forth. How did you end up in Fiji?

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Were you up there on a on a cheeky holiday and you just got chatter?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Well, that's not what I tell people, but um yes, I think. Well, look, it it I think chefs are quite nomadic, and so you often get requests anyway. So a lot of Kiwi chefs travel up there and they'll be in a in a in the Shangri-Lar or something and say, Can we get some meat over here? And then you sort of think, okay, well, they've had three requests now, let's investigate. So about two years ago, we we went and had a look, and we we've worked with another outfit, and we're so we're up there, got a base. Um, and you know, it's it's the reality is we're selling to hospitality, and if you go to Fiji now and you look at every other week, there's a new airline going in, there's a crane up somewhere, it's it's actually um booming over there. Um I think it's quite an it's still not an overly cheap holiday. So we felt that we could actually the meat or the food could do with a bit of a lift. That was our and that was that was what folk you know that's what pushed us into having a look at it, and now it's um yeah, it's going really well. So it's a different model export plan strategy, I suppose, is that we're not just going over, obviously we're speckled, we're taking our waggy brand, we're taking the coastal lamb, we're taking other things, which in effect is how I think the a good export sort of framework is that we're actually putting a lot of good brands together. You know, we're not trying to sell one product, a container of lamb shanks, we're trying to sell a full mix of products and give a different type of service to consumers or or or retailers or or resorts and that sort of thing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

What are the uh what do the chefs say about speckled beef?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Well, you know, you know you know what my answer's gonna be. I think they're really surprised um because it's it's you've got to remember it's not the chefs eating it, it's their it's their customers. And so they're just hugely surprised that it's they're not paying for you know wagy money, but they're getting a really, really good, consistent product every time. And it's interesting because even the even this speckle that we get that has no marbling and it eats like it's got marbling in it. And as we've investigated it, the meat itself is made up quite differently to traditional. It's it's not lean, the fat's just hidden inside the inside the muscle. So when you eat it, it's really juicy. And that's the the repeat message we get is it's very reliable, very tender, and very juicy. So that's at the end of the day, that's all you want, right? It's not um built with huge, intense flavour, but that's what the chef's job is.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

How do farmers fit into the the program in practical terms and um what does success look like for them?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

I I think ultimately success, and let's be honest, success is is return, right? You know, it's how many how much they get for their um for their animal. But we're very clear about what we expect from them to get that. You know, and and the first thing is don't start with an unknown animal. You know, don't start with something you don't know where the genetics come from. You can get bad speckled genetics, like you can get bagging us. So we uh we very much supportive at that end. So we supply the the semen straws or the bulls through our network because we can we can say these will these we've done all the testing like you would when you're when you're buying a stud bull, whatever they know what they're buying. So you're not gonna waste your time you know buying this, and then in in you know, two and a half, three years later, you're gonna get you know something that we believe is gonna be good so long as as the next farmer, if there is another farmer, is finishing it well as well. So we're very much part of that journey with the um the cow forward rather than just looking for animals on the side of the road. It's interesting with speckle because people don't think much about speckle unless we're talking about it right now, but once you see your first speckle, you will you see them everywhere. You know, because you know uh uh you know, you'll see 20 or 30 speckles on the side of the road and they will look different, but they're the same. You know, they're quite a unique characteristic. So anyway, so we we very much um partner with farmers and we they get the newsletters and they see what we're doing, so they see the brands, they see the restaurants, and often they'll we'll get an email from a farm or say, Look, I've got some guests, we're going down to Queenstown or we're going to Croyschridge or whatever. Can you can you um point us in the right direction? Of course, we'll ring the chef and say, Hey, listen, you've got these farmers coming, the speckle farmers, and they just roll the carpet out, you know. And that's such a beautiful thing watching happen, right? You're seeing the farmer engage with the chef about the meat that they could have actually come from their farm. We roll that right up, you know, if they hit all the marble scoring, which is um more than likely, if you look at the averages that we get, then they're gonna obviously get a premium on top of an already good price. And that is success at the end of it. You know, you you it's not something we talk about every day because we don't, because the metrics are already established. You achieve this, you get that. And then we share the good, the bad, and the ugly with each other and say, okay, this works, this doesn't work, with a view that all of us are sort of improving every day.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

It's really cool. Um so Simon, let's jump back uh 25 years to about 2001. I I think you'd just come back from the UK. Is that right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

What how did where did Neat Meat come from? Um yeah, well, when we came back, it was kind of an accident really. I was coming back. I was still here, I was looking after a farm in the UK. Uh I think I mean you talked about that, Ben. Um it was it's another story of another day, but with Panch Fullen Smith. And we I came back chasing this South African um girl, and she was just here on holiday, and of course, things worked went in the way I had hoped they would, which meant that we we we were staying here. And so being relatively unprepared and working for expected for myself near UK, I thought, what am I actually going to do? So I actually pulled together a CV and got a job as a farm consultant for Rightsons in Puka Coe. And with the average farm size of 12 hectares, I just thought there's not much I can do. Um, and um we thought, well, let's establish something in Auckland to start with, because fucking obviously was more in the corporate world. And so um I thought, well, I'm 27, we'll give it a crack. So I I introduced myself to everyone in the meat industry at a time when there was no work, but for me, it was actually working out of this where I wanted to be. Um, and then I met a fella, uh Richard Kidd, he was basically a trader, Richard Kidd Marketing, selling into it overseas. And I met him, we were just talking over a cup of tea, and then we saw, you know, I've got this connection in Australia. So should we um should we have a little devil, Australian lamb called Blue Ribbon Lamb and um Aussie Beef, AMH? So I found I founded Neat Meat on straight Aussie Meat. Um and he had this little uh company he started and and and he ran it for six months called the Neat Meat Company. And I remember thinking, what a stupid name. Um but it's set up, let's just run with it for now. And and like all things, we'll give it six months, probably won't work, and then we'll um walk away and you know, heavy we gave it a crack. And then, you know, so we gave it a good crack, and then timing it's all timing, a lot of it's timing, right? You just plow away and you find that the market's open for business, and you know, we we we we had some success with the Aussie beef, the Aussie LAN was a different story. Um, and then after you know, we we evolved, Richard then left the business. My brothers got involved, and then at some point, you know, we spent two days spending thousands of dollars with marketing agencies to understand what we should call this business. So we went from the neat meat company to the neat meat, who would have thought? Stuck with the name and after spending all that money. So um that's the that's the beginnings.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Why why did you stick with the name?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

When you're on the phone talking to someone and you say where you're from, you say neat meat, and they go, neat feet, feet, feet, meat, you know, it's actually a really hard name, but it's kind of in some ways, it's also different. You know, like we you could go for the glamour, you know, fancy names, it really means nothing if what underneath the name isn't any good. So in effect, it just was it it felt too hard to change. And it actually felt disingenuous. So we thought, well, there's a reason, the reason people are remembering it and think, well, you know, it's if we're gonna create something, if it's not a legacy, it's a memory, then you know, let's just keep the name and work on that, work on everything under it.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

You obviously had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak in you. Um and you mentioned, oh, maybe it's a story for another day, but what was your previous business experience?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Well, I mean, I think we were called the class in '93 from Mass University. So um let's just say we had a lot of fun at Mass University. Um both of us came away with a degree. Um having left the, I went into the mines in Australia, Kagurly. So I went into the dust bowl of Aussie, which is not for the week. And then I thought, well, my career's not advancing here. So then over to the UK, and I actually um was one of the early adopters of uh what we call C V modification. So we got it and I think my mates were all carrying bricks, I think it was a hod carrying for four pounds fifteen. I thought, well, that's yeah, that's right. That's what people were doing. I thought, well, a friend of mine said, why don't we just tweak your CV and see if we can get you into a bank? And we did it. And I sure enough, I whipped through the um interview and somehow ended up in Rothschild looking after fund management or working in fund management. I thought, I don't know, I don't know how long this is gonna last. And I was in there, I I was earning £25 an hour. So I thought, this is just too good, you know, at a time, this is 25 years ago. And so that was fantastic. And after about five months, I thought, well, I'm gonna get found at some point. I got a phone call in the office as I was fumbling my way through my day, a guy pounced Fullerton Smith, Hugh, and uh he was a previous Nuffield scholar, great entrepreneur, and he had this crazy idea. So he convinced me to go down to you know to this this farm, I don't know, it was about 30 acres down on the uh in the M25. And uh these wealthy English couples said, look, we want to build a house, we need to put a farm that can sustain an income off 30 acres. I said, Well, I wouldn't know how to do it on 3,000 acres in a 30. So that's when Pench had an idea around this wild boar farming. So we brought the females from the Baltics and we borrowed a couple of males from the zoo and then created this.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

You took some from the zoo.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, well, yeah. They went they went in the I think they've been extinct since the 1600s. So we had to fence the farm up like a zoo. We had uh uh outriggers, in-riggers, top wire, concrete channels, everything. And we um and when we're getting counts to come out and prove it, they'd you know, we already would jump the gun a bit and we already had the breeding stock in the in the in the big shed with the the old oil stables and a few noises being made, and I had to pretend that it was me making those noises anyway. So we got through all of that to and the farm kicked off. And Panch and I went and saw Wait, the Sainsbury's and Waitros. And we actually, more Panch managed to get the the wild boar as a premium. And I remember looking at Aberdeen Angus in there, and I think that's what sort of resonated with me going forward around where brands fit and how they fit. And and and the wild boar was next to the Eberdeen, and it was, you know, we were getting three, I remember £3.95 a kilo at Lord Maunders when conventional pork was £58 pence. And it for me, another lightning bolt moment where wow, there's still pigs. How we managed to do this, you know, you look for these gaps, you know, and that was one of those big gaps. I should also note that um a lot of my massy mates came and stayed on the farm through the course of those years there, working on the farm all nearby. And there was this one moment where at this point all the wild born in the UK was still enclosed and confined. And then I um we went in and one day they'd escaped out of the shed, but they were inside the main yards, and about three or four got past the first line of fence was just me. And then Stu Weatherstone, an old mate of mine who's a farmer, I thought he was pretty good at cover tackling, but he missed as well. And through the gate they went. Um there's been a number of documentaries since then on the release of the Wild War around South England, so you know we're privy we're part of that of that.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Uh mate, so you left you left your mark on the UK there, and it's blokes like you that led to the GFC. Yes, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you got out, but you got out before getting handcuffed.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Pretty much. The writing was on the wall, right? Um, so we we headed home, we headed home um having had a really good time in the UK. And uh and again, unbeknownst to me, you know, some learn learnings and what we achieved. I remember when we started the farm, actually, and I had no idea what I was doing. Uh I mean, how long's the gestation? Uh well it turns out it's three months, three weeks, three days, right? I learned that pretty quickly. What do you, you know, how do we farm these things? All that. So I remember sending an email to Evelyn Hurley, who was my lecturer at university, Massey, and I said, look, Evelyn, I've this is where I've ended up. Could do with some research notes from Massey, um, you know, the pioneer unit, you know, the main university for animal, you know, and uh and she and she came back to me about five days later with about four fourteen other professors in the emails saying, Listen, we've got nothing, but we're quite keen to learn from you. That's concerning. Yeah, that she didn't get any she didn't get a response from me at all over those three years. I couldn't give her anything that was worth learning from. But um, oh look, it was a wonderful journey. I mean, every two weeks I'd put all the the finished pigs into a horse float, take them down to Lord Maunders, and and um, you know, we'd rinse and repeat every month. It was good. It was great.

unknown 26:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

It's crazy. So you came back here and uh got neat meat going. Um apart from having a crack at importing Aussie Lamb, were there any sort of early other early failings or near misses that nearly derailed the business?

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Oh yeah. I mean, how much how much time have you got? I think um ignorance is bliss, right? So if you if you in hindsight look to see where all the where all the big holes and the traps were going to be set, you you probably wouldn't get into it because it'd be frightening. Um the good thing about not knowing that and overthinking things is you just tear into it, and then when you hit something big or small, you just find a way around it. Um, you know, I I you know, as I say, at the beginning it was quite easy. Like we had uh no debt, you know, it was a very simple business, low overhead structure. So we could kick costs down and you know, and actually the market was became quite buoyant up until 2008. So we had a timing-wise, we were a bit lucky, we you know got the Angus Pew brand, so we had some good success and good growth. You know, so I'm in that mode of it's never gonna fail, but the reality is things always come across suddenly. You you know, a meat company might say we've got other priorities, and suddenly you're you know you're you're at risk of losing a brand or a supply line, so or you've got a big restaurant chain. I remember the Lone Star Group, they were our biggest one, then one day they they just left because they'd done a deal with someone, and you think that's just left to a gaping great hole. And you so you always fear the vulnerability, you know, being vulnerable. And so that's where you try and look at these multiple channels and stuff. So I think one of the risks and fears or watch outs is that is being reliant too much on a on a an individual customer. Um you had COVID, you know, it I had I don't know, four or five million dollars sitting out there in restaurants, and you know, when the music stops with them, they don't carry a lot of cash. So, you know, what are we going to ever get paid? So that's one of those moments, you know. Um, so you know, there's a lot of things which I think in hindsight were, you know, are we are we um, you know, we had Hammageddon one year, Ilisteria, and um, you know, you think, oh my goodness, you know, 20, 21st of December, and it wasn't fortunately in all our hands, but we you if you don't know where it is, you're just in you're in freak mode the whole time. So there's there's things, and then you know, again, I think it's what you know what you tend to do is you typically wrap yourself around good people, and you realise that, okay, I'm not as good as that. So if that situation arises again, I'm gonna have someone in there that helps. I mean, you know, um, getting the banks to play ball and work with us, and there would have been times in the early days where they said, look, we're not sure that we can, you know, keep going this path, what are you gonna do? So there's there's yeah, there's lots of moments where you have to stop and check. Um, you know, and I again I think you know what that's created is a whole lot of resilience um and always looking forward to okay, what's my next what could be the next issue?

SPEAKER_02 29:00

So I'm guessing that like having really strong relationships has been a real key to your success as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Yeah. Yeah. I again I think you know, you go back to Guzzy days, you know, everything's about relationship, right? Everyone's kind of equal. We sort of adopt the same, I suppose, policy where we at we we're not farmers, we don't own processing. Um, so therefore we're gonna have to become, you know, and be genuinely good friends with those that group, you know, those groups and so forth. So, you know, whether it's accountants or the banks or or the restaurants or the retailers, you know, you spend a lot of time working on those partnerships and those relationships because at the end of the day, you're kind of borrowing something from someone the whole time. You're working with each other to problem solve, you know, you never have enough money to do it all yourself, you know. So you always so you're always in fix it mode or improvement mode, you know, that's the sort of thing. And and if you're at any point you sort of, you know, that you don't leave enough on the table for the other side, you know, that relationship's not going to last.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

When you started it, um, like obviously you said you were, you know, 27 and you probably weren't thinking two decades down the track, but was there a point where you thought, actually, this looks like it could be in for the in in for the long haul?

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Uh mate, uh yes, uh when did I think that? I think it it sort of came about. I remember talking to a friend of my father's, he said some and I'll give you um two pieces uh two pieces of advice. The first one is when you're in this case, my brothers and another's you know partners were winning, I said, all's well and good until you get married, and then when you get married, you have children. So when you have children, the pressure changes, you know, quite considerably on the needs of each family. And he said, so here's the first problem you're going to experience. When you don't have enough money, or when you've got money issues, there's a problem. I said, what's the other one? When you have too much money, you've got a problem. Fortunately, I'm not either, but you know, that's kind of the that's the that's the that's the turning point and sort of understanding, okay, which are we now? We can't not think this isn't something. And you take yourself a bit more seriously, you take your partnerships a lot more seriously, and you actually become, do you sit there and go, do I hug her down and get into a defensive mode, or actually do I back myself and and the partnerships we've got and say, right, we're gonna, we're gonna, you know, we're just gonna double down and go hard, but then obviously take as much risk out of out of it as possible.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Do you still feel now 25 years on, do you still have that same mentality of, you know, just pushing on and trying to keep growing, or have you sort of um solidified a bit more?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

No, not at all. I think we've we've think we've worked out what we're good at. So we focus in that area. Um, we know that by looking in in our industry, there's uh huge scope for um there's great opportunities out there. I think the industry itself hasn't evolved. I think a lot of the farming community has and largely forced on them by previous governments around the environment and so forth. So by default, I think that's enhancing the New Zealand brand. But I do think that because the way we operate and it's farmers on this side of the fence and the processes on this side, it's like going rugby, right? You know, you one team will win. I think it's it's working in all of that to understand, okay, how can we actually improve that value? So and it's massive. I mean, neatmeat is is if if nothing else, is just it's a vehicle. You know, if if nothing else, we spent 25 years define refining the vehicle, and the vehicle is designed to do other things with it. If we didn't have the business, what are we what's the vehicle look like? You know, where are we going to be good and where can we impact what you know in a in an industry or you know, what impact can we have? And and it's enormously satisfying, notwithstanding it's frustrating as all hell, but you know, you when you get something right, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Yeah, yeah. And you brought your brothers into the business, as you've mentioned. What sort of skills did they bring in? And how have they, you know, you guys complimented each other, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 32:55

I I could answer that question in a number of different ways. I mean, firstly, what skills do you bring in? Um my first brother, Willie, he's got the gift of gaps, he's all talk. He didn't really finish any degrees, um, it's he but he talked his way around it. And I remember when he got back, and Willie, Willie's heard this a few times before, but Willie um said to me, you know, I'm coming in and doing. I said, You'll be great. Join, yeah, no, um, you're a good salesperson. But you know, his golf handicap dropped. He was done lunches were going well, didn't see light happening on the sales. So I rang mum up and I said, This isn't working, he's got to go. She didn't let me, so he had to stay. And I had a couple of cracks at ringing mum and said no. So anyway, so uh Willie, you know, yeah, he has is is he's great with people, a real people person. Tim, when he got back, um he really did roll the grenade because he came back in 2008-9 when the world came unstuck and he's working for a big bank over there. And I think he was doing a lot of property deals in Northern Ireland. So I think he rolled the grenade and jumped on the first flight out. And when he got back, so Tim's got a you know, he's got a very structured uh side, you know, he's you know, he's very numbers oriented and so forth. So, you know, I think um the ki the key aspect of working with family is that you do recognize your strengths and your weaknesses and you don't mind having a you know having it out there, don't leave anything hidden or anything. Um, but then you know, giving ourselves the freedom to be able to to do that. If nothing else, that's probably one of our big biggest successes, is that yeah, we work well together.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

It's pretty amazing actually that you've been working together for a couple of decades, right? Like a lot of siblings couldn't withstand that.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah, yeah, it is, it's cool. I mean, we we give ourselves distance out of work, which is good, but we also then do a lot of things together. We've all s our wives are close and they're and they're they're awesome, and our kids and our kids are all great, and there's three of each. We've all got three in the different mixes, and and they're all very close too. So we're just sort of, I don't know, we're a bit lucky really how it's all worked out. But I think again, it comes back to that growing up in Gisbon on a farm, you know, nearest neighbour's 2K either side, you've got to get on with each other. We did a lot of fighting, you know, and um and and playing and rugby and tennis and all the rest of it. So I think your upbringing teaches you a lot about how to grow old together as well.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Where was the farm that you grew up on?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Oh, it's about half an hour inland, uh west of Gisbon, so Warang Al Kuri, so uh the back road to Tinaroto back down to Waral, you know. So she was in the hinterland. Um yeah, so uh good beef, beef and sheep country, good duck shooting. Um yeah, that was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

That area would have got walloped in the site uh by Gabriel.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Yeah, yeah, it did. It did, especially Tikaraka and the low, you know, the low areas. I mean, it was very it was interesting because we we we in Auckland we put together a fund, a fundraiser that we raised over $600,000 uh for uh Hawks Bay and and and Poverty Bay. So we're sending half the money into each of those regions. So we got to see in real time what was happening, especially in the farming community. Yeah, they got hammered. Yeah, they really did. But I mean, I remember cycling bowling in 88, you know, and I was just started at school in Auckland, and mum and dad were heading back from sport and couldn't get back into Gisbon for a week, and we're marooned on someone's farm. And so you sort of remember that, you know, how devastating some of those um events are.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

I'm interested because you and you've sort of touched on this this idea of the storytelling, the marketing side of it. How how much of I guess has the job become more about that or is it you know fundamentally about product and supply?

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Oh, I think it's very evenly balanced between the both of them. I mean, you know, I work very much on the on the on the supply side of things. So I work with farmers and processors to unlock all of that. And and effectively the story or the brand is what um let's just say speckle beef, for example, is what we all, it's the head, it's what we can see. And underneath of that is is is the story, is the farming, is the is the production processing and everything. So the key here is how you how you wind it all together. You know, you can't have too much storytelling and and a not enough product. You can't have too much product and not have the story set quite right. And then there's all the moving parts in between. So you've got to have an MPD team, which we have working the whole time on, always developing new sausages or new seasonings to add value to the that part of the carcass, as I said earlier, that doesn't sell as easily. Um, so it's it's a problem-solving exercise, but yes, I think that that they all have to coexist at the same time, which is why you've got to have people in the organization that has got to specialise in those areas. We've got guys that are very numbers-oriented and very organized and are planning that don't really buy into any of the storytelling whiff-off, you know. Um, and then you have the the front end guys doing the selling and loving the story and doing the tastings that aren't really turned to concerned about what's you know what's happening at the production end, you know. So, but all of it has to work together, and I think that's been uh probably in the last five years the bit that we've focused on the most.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

Do you have um, I think you mentioned earlier sort of uh maybe you mentioned the word influencer, but do you have people out there um on social media, you know, promoting your product chefs and things?

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Uh yeah, I mean look, we these days, I mean it's a pretty cluttered, you know, um landscape at the moment with you know social media. So you've got to be quite, as we learned out with our online, you can spend a lot of money, money on AdWords, you know, Google or Facebook or whatever, and get nowhere. And and I always feel too it's a little bit like it's a bit fake. You know, uh probably our you know, chefs don't chefs say it with the passion, right? So we we start there, and if we can succeed with restaurants, not only what they say, but what we'll say about them through our own media channels. Um, and then you know, we have the Harmony brand which sits in retail. So the whole design of that back in the day was let's create the brand and the story, get the quality right, and then processing right at the restaurant, and then let's take it to the next territory, which is retail. You know, Nagas Pure is a classic example of that. So then that gives it a different audience, a wider audience, and then you partner up with the supermarkets or the My Fo bags or whatever to tell that story again. So you're constantly in storytelling mode, but at each point their audience is different, their way of connecting with their audiences are different, and that's going back to that sort of value in the partnership. Um, but oh look, you can't really I think it's evolving, right? We have we've adopted AI in a big way, um, quite early day doors, and you know, it to me, AI doesn't necessarily replace a lot of people. What it does is it helps speed your ideas up, it it quantifies things in a millisecond. It's so good. So we're we're always learning around how to do that better in terms of promoting brands or storytelling and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

I'm keen to just um step out a bit wider, I guess, from just Neat Meat and talk about some of the bigger picture stuff. And one of those is I guess consumer preferences. What shifts have you seen over the years, Simon, in how people um think about meat and purchase meat?

SPEAKER_00 39:55

I think if you go back to COVID time, I mean this is a really interesting time. I you know, I think meat in general around the world was reasonably balanced. I think that consumers have always had a lot of choice around meat. I think if you look at Australia, they've got an enormous amount of brands in the last 15 years. The amount of brands and storytelling and that's gone into theirs. New Zealand's nowhere near that, but we're sort of different type of market. I think one of the biggest defining moments was during COVID when James Cameron, you know, the film director and a lot of Hollywood came out saying, well, you know, meat's not good for you, you know, animal cruelty, all the rest of it. And they invested heavily in all these fake meat alternatives. And I saw the pendulum swing massively just because they had the audience, you know, they had the means to connect with consumers globally, and all of a sudden, you know, San Francisco was investing in, you know, in Silicon Valley was investing in all these things, and so were there all these big things, you know. So it was kind of what's happening here? It's like you're taking away what New Zealand's great at good at all you're trying to. So supermarkets were starting to pull all these things. So I that was the first then, and we sort of sat, and I remember saying to Vicky, I said, you just watch the pendulum swing back again because it has to, and it did. And when people worked out, actually these things are full of chemicals themselves, and actually, you know, they're not efficient. And we don't even know if they're good for you. It's just a fad. And so now you've seen a lot of them disappear, and you've actually seen the opposite impact where you've people have realized that the, I think that the health value in meat, you know, you could look at 10 different studies in certain 10 different ways. Some people say that creates cancers, and some people say if you don't eat it, you're you're going to have it, you know, an iron deficiency. And so everything in moderation, I think people view um, I think they view meat right now, it's it's a lot scarcer than it has been. The supply's dropped globally, so people are now saying, geez, but you haven't seen demand drop that much. So people are paying more. So you think you recognize people's see value in meat. Um yeah, so I I think that uh it the whole world, whole meat game is in a in a pretty good space. I think you know, you know, we're we're seeing things in New Zealand hospitality that we never used to see before. Like we're seeing Japanese wagyu come into New Zealand and it has done for a little while. So you're starting to see a very much a depth of meat. I'd love to see that more in retail. I mean, I think the retailers um historically have focused on promoting meat as a discounter, you know, like to get people into store, they'll disc they'll have meat on special. And as a result, there's no real depth to the storytelling or the alternative. So consumers naturally think, well, okay, that's just how I see meat. You know, and lamb legs were $9.95 kilo, that's where people set their stance. So then as it goes up to the value of $19, where it has to be, then people stop buying it because they don't materially see see what you know the value in it. So yeah, I think um, yeah, it I th the the landscape for meat and I think for consumers is changing massively and I think it's pretty promising.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Do you think people are eating uh you know, having gone through their alternative meat phase and all that kind of stuff? Do you think people now are eating more meat than we did 20 years ago or about the same?

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Well, I think studies tell us we're not. Um I think our serving portion sizes um are dropping. You know, I think there's one thing around that, you know, that the the World Health recognises that it's not meat, it's everything we eat too much of, including the alcohol and so forth. So I think, you know, I'm always a big advocate for eating quality over quantity. You know, and I think that's naturally people go, well, I'm gonna get that 400 gram average um stake cut instead of that 250 really good one. You know, the same price, but they're going for quantity. So I think as a result of that, people are sort of buying smaller portions um but but buying a better quality product.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

Obviously, and you've you've mentioned it there, the price of uh meat in New Zealand is you know it's becoming out of reach for a lot of Kiwis. Why can you just explain why that's happened? I mean, you talked about a supply demand thing. Um what are some of the other factors, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Well, yeah, it is. I mean, I think meat sales, we know this has dropped considerably. Restaurants um are probably selling a bit more fish and chicken and alternatives or or just reducing the portion sizes. Going, so the t the volume's down that way. Um look, look, it's well known the whole world, except for China, beef production's down. The biggest uh um impact is the US obviously heard it's down and will be for some time. The farmers don't seem to be that interested in growing it because they can see that they hit the sweet spot, so their returns are greater. But also it takes years to rebuild if they wanted to rebuild. So um Americans, um, Europe's now in in the game with New Zealand beef. So essentially, consumers in New Zealand are competing with the rest of the world for our own meat, and that's reality. If we want to buy it, we don't subs no one's subsidizing it. And I think if your farmers are going to get over $9 for the beef, processes can't really be subsidizing meat for domestically, you know, to stay to stay, you know, profitable, they need to we need to match. So that's the game, right? That's the challenge we've got is how do we how do we take what sort of product should we be targeting New Zealand consumers that re that all kiwis are able to buy you know within reason and still be keep the farmers you know pricing high as well.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

Do you find it frustrating that um the everyday Kiwi can't eat a lot of the really good quality meat that we do produce here?

SPEAKER_00 45:15

I suppose it it depends on what you mean by quality, right? Uh is quality um a grain-fed eye fillet, or grass-fed eye fillet, or wagyu, or is quality dry aged T-bone or or um or is it a really is it some of the cuts we don't know about, like the like the the the bivette or the rump cap, or um or is it just really good mints with really good seasonings and a really good recipe? You know, I'll give you a good example. I mean, my food baggy we've got a good relationship with forever in a day, and you know, we look we we work closely around price ups and downs and and they have to come up with recipes that work within their budget that are going to be in demand. And you actually see if you you know, you if you look at it, often a lot of the products are the same, but they've just changed the way the recipes were done with it. So I think if people do look a bit more into what they can do with mints, what they can do with you know, you buy really high quality short rib, it takes a little bit longer to cook, but it's delicious, but it's a lot cheaper. So I think it's just looking around for those alternatives rather than thinking, well, I'm gonna go home with a ribeye tonight.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

So you're talking about production dropping, um, which kind of leads us into a topic that you've been quite outspoken about, which is us losing good productive farmland into carbon forestry. How do you feel about that? Tell me your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Yeah, quite strongly about it, actually. I mean, you know, one of the fix-its we've got to achieve is how do we how do we um if you've got all the meat processes in New Zealand and no one's gonna, you know, and we want you know efficiency at plant and we want to grow our numbers, it's not gonna work when we're planting trees. There's I suppose there's a couple aspects to this. One is, you know, our one of our big economic drivers in New Zealand and employers, biggest employer by long shot, is agriculture. And so when we're giving away our land to something which we're never gonna, it's only gonna be a tree forever. And don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with the tree. I have a problem with the intent. Um, I have a problem with the the flat or good rolling land or good, you know, good farming country that's been converted into forestry, which is a carbon sump for, you know, big industries through Europe. I mean, that's just a sacrilege. I mean, you're converting some of the best uh grass-growing soils and climate in the world into something that has got a rather disingenuous sort of you know, outcome or pun. You know, it to me it doesn't make sense. And, you know, I look at Hawke's Bay, you know, in the last wee while three farms got sold. You know, forestry guys will say, well, they they were, you know, grade six, sevens and so forth. They they might have been, but uh, most of the farm wasn't. You know, I don't have a problem with farming steep country like that. That that's not suitable for grazing or it's too hard. But that flat rolling stuff, you know, that I think IKEA have bought down in in Hawke's Bay, it's just it's just wrong. You know, it's it's it's taking away um livelihoods, it's taking away beef and sheep production. So 36,000 hectares a year, that's a lot, you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Um so yeah, I think we've lost about 300,000 since 2017 or something. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Um what's the solution?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

What do you want to see the government do? Well, if they're gonna ban the the the you know converting farmland uh into forestry at a certain you know gradient, then do it. It doesn't seem that that's what's happening, right? I mean, enforce it. I don't know how that's not enforceable. It's uh geomap it, fly over the farm. There's technology now. You can map a farm and say, right, these bits we can don't maybe don't even fence it, use halter. I don't know. But I mean, we've got the advantage of technology being built in New Zealand now that we can manage these things. So there's probably farmland right now that we could convert into forestry and all be agreeable to it, and there's a lot of forestry that should not be in in farmland. And I and I so I don't I couldn't ask answer you why the government isn't controlling it better, but no government has. And and and and I'll say it now. I mean, if if if if it wasn't national, then I'd I'd hate to think what other country could disappear into you know into forestry.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

Are there any other issues facing the uh the agriculture sector that you're you feel quite strongly about?

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Not particularly. I mean, you you go through New Zealand now and there's that urban sprawl going on, you know, you drive through likes of you know Puka Koe and you see, you know, I I think that um, you know, New Zealand as a whole is doing a pretty good job. I mean, some farmers, I think you especially the younger farmers doing a really good job at fencing off waterways. And sometimes you drive down the road and you see they've made a huge effort. And again, I think, you know, government put a bit of pressure on, but that pressure seems to come, but a lot of farmers do it now because they think it's the right thing to do. Then on the other side of the road, they haven't done anything. So I think we as farmers or farmers could certainly all agree that there's things that we could do, not only because it's a it's you know, we we should be able to swim in our waterways. That shouldn't be a thing. But at the same time, it is part of New Zealand brand. I mean, if we we have got a great reputation to uphold, and um, you know, you should be able to drive the length of New Zealand and be quite quite proud of what you see.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Yeah, so I was going to ask you a yeah, a question about that, really. How do how do we strike the right balance between, I guess, this environmental footprint thing and emissions reduction and um remaining uh maintaining productive farming systems?

SPEAKER_00 50:37

You know, farmers, you know, as a whole, I think there's, you know, if you look at each farming, you know, where it is, the type of soil, the, you know, the gradient, the the the the rainfall, everything else, I I think that farms are really suited for certain things, right? And and again, I think the biggest, you know, one of the things is I do it because my granddad did it. Doesn't actually mean it's the right thing to do, right? So I think you look at Country Calendar now, you look at a lot of farmers who say, you know what, I'm gonna actually change. There's farmers that have got into regen farming because philosophically they believe in that, you know, and they want to do better by the soils. You know, everyone's journeying in different ways. But I do think too, you know, again, I go back to speckle, and and there will be other examples too, where you know, you're looking for um uh a farming system which actually is it's kilos of meat per hectare, if you look at it like that. You know, how do I increase the output from farm? And you will think like that with yields with crops, but we don't typically think that like with animals. And so I think there's a way in which we can again you use technology to get the best out of pasture and land, but also I think there's um genetics that can be looked at as well, rather than doing something that previous generations did and say, well, actually, what can I grow on this farm or on this land that gets the best outcome? Have you thought about going farming yourself? Um there's a reason I think dad sold the farm, didn't give it to us. Uh I love the idea of it. Um I I think it we'd love to own a farm is is to and and actually um put ourselves in that rather than just be, you know, sideline referees. I think it would be actually good for us to have it to validate some of the things that we believe or not. I I've always wanted to live, I want to live in rural New Zealand, there's no question. Whether would I be a good farmer? Dunno, probably not.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Hey, um Simon, sort of as we come to the end of this, um, I'll just ask a couple more questions uh about neat meat. Where do you see the business positioned in say five to ten years?

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Yeah, I mean that that's a really good question. And and I've never believed in a three-year strategy ever up until about three years ago or two years ago. Um, because I've not really seen what our value proposition is. You know, I think the psyche of a lot of businesses, like build up, let's not worry about the next generation, let's sell it and take money off the table, water, water, water. I think we're we're watching our progress. And if we can make a meaningful change or or if if we can do something which has an impact, positive impact and in an area that's scalable, then I think that's where we want to focus because it actually feels good. It's good. Um so you know, what does that mean? Well, you know, we've got a number in mind of where we want to be in the end of next year. We've had some really good growth in the last couple of years when it's been a tough environment. We're just about to acquire a business in Wellington, you know, where others aren't. So we think the timing's right to actually invest, you know, a low dollar, let's invest. So we've got a footprint throughout New Zealand. We're now obviously in Fiji. So can we redefine some of our export initiatives? So rather than just typically, you know, how it is exported now, maybe we'd be a sort of more of a micro version where we're actually exporting New Zealand overseas, but it's a con it's a it's a it's a collab of smaller brands and partnerships, which is targeting a different audience, you know, like straight into the food service sector or whatever. Now that could be pipe dreams, and if we give it enough time and it doesn't work, then that will define that might that might answer you, you know. But if that does look like something, then it's saying, well, what can we do next? At some point, we ex, you know, we get to the end of what our capabilities are, so you keep rebuilding those partnerships. So I think there's huge opportunities. Whether we can achieve it, I don't know. Um the time frame that we want to do it. But I think feels right now, because it's feels like the whole industry is changing. I mean, Alliance have now been largely brought out by Dawn Meets, you know, so you've got um new people in the game. You you know, what is that gonna do? You know, you've got a lot of chat going on at the moment around and I love it when the when the market's not doing anything and no one's really interested in changing anything, that's when it gets you think, oh well, maybe I'm not it's not for me. But it feels to me right now that there's huge opportunity and we'll get we'll just jump into it, you know, and do as much as we can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

Um what excites you most about the future of our red meat sector and then uh what worries you the most?

SPEAKER_00 54:57

I think the exciting thing is you know, just look what's happening now. I I only hope that um, you know, we don't sit back and not reinvest, you know, like we've got the opportunity now, if we didn't before to quitting debt and all the rest of it, but investing in, as we talked earlier about around building some environmental um rigor into the into your into the farming system and so forth. And so farmers being true to themselves, but then it you know, I also see there's a lot of opportunity for farmers to work together a lot more, you know. I think that them and us to kind of mentality, oh that I got this price, but my neighbor got something different. I think somehow that needs to be, you know, maybe I'm being a bit dreamy about it. But I think um, you know, I I think we're in a good place. New Zealand Red Meat's in a great place. Um, I think globally meets strong, and it doesn't look like it's gonna change for a little while. I think it like, you know, it's always now's a good time to invest when prices are high and build brands and relate partnerships now because at some point it does come off, and that's what the objective of a brand should be doing is holding yourself in market. It's not always about shooting any heart. Um I think what comes with all that is all the technology that we talk about too. Understanding materially what is in our meat, how good is it? Do we have the amigas in our like Speckle has? Do we have that in New Zealand because of our grass that we can actually start promoting? How do we take a leaf out of the zespery and you know, even you know, the dairy industry and and actually sort of shore up our uh our meat I red meat IP globally and domestically for that matter? Um, so you know, I have a I have a lot of hope. And as I say, my I I hope uh the politics don't get in the way, you know, like governments and you know, the lack of certainty, you know, you know, where do farmers sit? One day we go, well, I can budget for this year until a government turns up and say I've got to drop $100,000 into something which I don't understand or don't agree on. So there's a lot of stuff that I think needs to be, you know, just anchored down so give some certainty to farmers.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Yeah. It's funny you talk about, you know, the quality of what we produce and people um buying with their eyes, because we've had this example this week of the butter, the US butter in the media. Yeah. And that's something very I think because I think often Kiwis, we can't actually, we don't know how good our own product is. Because we don't live in America, we don't buy weird-looking cheese and stuff. And having this US butter on you know on the news this week, people I think people have been like, oh hell, we actually I can see what's different about our product, not just the way it looks, but the the the makeup of it, the nutrients, right?

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Yeah, well, I mean, China worked that out a while ago. Helmet did a Chinese trip years ago, and um it's funny. Well, I did an Asian trip, and when we're in China, the press, a young press, they were saying, we're worried about the food we grow here. You know, a a farmer that week, uh he's a watermelon farmer, was killed with an exploding watermelon. What? Yeah, head injuries because of the what they were saying, because of the hormones and everything that were feeding through the and then so they were they were saying we're scared of the food we eat that we grow here. And so I think you're right. I mean, you they see New Zealand as a safe, and and there's all that labelling issues, you know, they bright they pretend to sell New Zealand-made product and it's actually made somewhere else. They put New Zealand. So it just shows New Zealand's got a very, very strong brand because people are stealing our name. Um so and and I think, you know, like even the Chinese, you know, the dairy industry over there is that capacity. In fact, they have to colour here because they realise they've actually got to use New Zealand dairy in theirs because theirs is not their quality is not good enough. So, you know, we've already got good, right? We're already really good. To your point, I think we've not really backed ourselves or been or been able to convince the consumer. And now people are look doing a bigger, deeper dive into what they're growing themselves. And I think, you know, that for example, I think the US, the grain-fed, you know, industry is actually under a bit of threat because people see the value in grass-fed beef.

SPEAKER_02 58:39

Lamb. Hey, Simon, to just to finish up on a bit of a quick fire around here. What's one thing you think Kiwis should start doing? One thing you think they should stop doing and keep doing.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

This is where I lay it down, mate. This is where I get hate mail. Um, start doing uh succession planning. I think that's one of our biggest issues. The environmental piece, which we topped on, I think everyone should have something in there. Um farming smart and efficiently. I think that's an obvious thing. But again, that's like what does it mean around technologies and so forth? Be curious. You know, have a look outside what your granddad didn't do or didn't think, you know, say have a look around, seeing what you can do to adopt, you know, different ideas, you know, have but these farming groups and discussions are actually invaluable for that. Stop doing what granddad did, maybe, I don't know. Um and selling to forestry. I think that's a good start. Uh, keep doing, being awesome and proud of what you do. I I don't think you know that what we do, what we grow in New Zealand is second to none, you know. So let's just keep doing more of that.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

What a legend. Hey Simon, so good to chat with you. I laughed when you said your brother had the gift of the gab because I was thinking, well, you're the one who bluffed yourself into a fund manager job. And you're bloody good at telling the story, man. Um, it's a really, really interesting story. I think you've probably got a whole lot of yarns you could share.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yeah, yeah, no problem. It's good to be here. Thanks, Ben.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

Yeah, thanks, son.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. If you've enjoyed it and you'd like to hear more, subscribe to the Federated Farmers Podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts so that you get notified when our new episodes drop. And if you have any feedback or podcast suggestions, we'd love to hear from you. Please drop us a line. Podcast at fedfarm.org.nz. That's podcast at fedfarm.org.nz. Catch you next time.