The Farmers Club Private Podcast

Episode 47 - Lachie McKenzie interviews a panel of Agriculturalists

• Dwain Duxson • Season 2 • Episode 47

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This podcast is a little different; it’s from a panel we were involved in during the Farmers Day Out at Ballarat in late March.

The lineup included:

Lachie McKenzie - Founder of McKenzie Ag - Panel Facilitator.

Brooke Dawson - CEO of Oakdale Meat Co.

Phil McFarlane - CEO of Australian Plant Proteins.

Alistair Ham - Founder of Windemere Oilseeds.

Dwain Duxson - Founder of The Farmers Club

The quality of a panel podcast depends on the quality of the questions asked, and Lachie McKenzie didn’t let us down in that department. 

All the panel members spoke about what drives them in business and the passion they have for their respective operations. Lachie also asked about the problems they face right now, and it was quite interesting the diversity of problems each panel member had. I remember when we did a survey of about 50 of our Farmer subscribers a few years back, asking them what problems they were facing at the time. As with the panel, each Farmer had a unique problem, and no two problems were the same. 

This is a fantastic interview where you will learn what drives these people and understand what it takes for business success in Ag. Just a word of warning, when it gets to the panel bit, you may have to turn the volume up. 

I hope you enjoy. End of message.

The Farmers Club podcast is now only available to our paid newsletter subscribers. 

Our partner in this podcast is our sister business, Farm Tender. We are an online buying and selling marketplace for Farmers and anyone else associated with Agriculture. Go to www.farmtender.com.au and sign up from there.

SPEAKER_02

Hi everyone, Dwayne Duxon here from the Farmers Club Private Podcast. We do these podcasts in conjunction with our sister business, Farm Tender, which is an online buying and selling marketplace for farmers. Go to farmtender.com.au and sign up from there. This podcast is a little different. It's from a panel we were involved in during the Farmers Day Out event at Ballarat in late March. The lineup included Lockie McKenzie, whom we've done a very, very good interview with back earlier. He is the founder of Mackenzie Ag and was the panel facilitator. We also had Brooke Dawson, who's the CEO of Oakdale Meat Co. We had Phil McFarlane, who's the CEO of Australian Plant Proteins. We had Alistair Ham, founder of Windermere Oil Seeds, and myself. The quality of a panel podcast depends on the quality of the questions asked. And Lockie McKenzie didn't let us down in that department. All the panel members spoke about what drives them in business and the passion they have for their respective operations. Lockie also asked about the problems they face right now, and it was quite interesting the diversity of problems each panel member had. As with the panel, each farmer had a unique problem. No two problems were the same. This is a fantastic interview of what it takes for business success in ag. Just a word of warning. When it gets to the panel bit, you might want to turn the volume up. I hope you enjoy. End a message.

SPEAKER_03

Well, let's get underway with our panel. So we're talking innovation and ag and um I'm excited about this. It's one of my favourite topics, and I'm glad that I get to just sit and enjoy because we've got Lochland McKenzie from Mackenzie Ag who will be facilitating this one. And if you don't know Lockie, he's got vast experience in all aspects of beef and lamb feedlotting operations as well as livestock trading with properties near Ballarat and Hamilton. And he has an innate understanding of what it takes to run a sustainable and profitable intensive farming systems enterprise. So please welcome Lochland McKenzie.

SPEAKER_09

Thanks. Thanks, Kirsten. Now I'm worried about the audio. So I know enough people here that are blunt enough with me, like Damien, that'll tell me if they can't hear me. So give us a wave, please, or say speak up, or same with the panelists, just so uh we get to enjoy uh and hopefully learn something from other people on the panel. So if I just introduce the panel, uh firstly, Brooke Dawson from Oakdale Meets, uh Dwayne Duckson from the Farmers Club, who you heard speak earlier, uh Alista Ham from Windermere Oil Seeds, and Phil McFarlane from Australian Plant Proteins. So uh I'm uh I'm the uh lucky person who gets to uh ask the questions and hopefully invoke some discussions from four of the final fine four of the finest agriculturalists uh in Australia with remarkable backgrounds and very, very impressive stories from their own businesses. Um and Commerce Ballarat have done a very good job to put together a panel of uh diverse business backgrounds. So um nothing's more diverse than um one of Australia's leading private um meat processing families, and Australia's only uh favour bean protein extraction for making vegetable protein. So I've got us we've got uh a vegetable protein uh manufacturer, um a meat processor, um uh Alastair Ham from here in in uh Ballarat's got Windermere Oil Seeds, which is uh a truly remarkable Ballarat business that we'll get to. And uh Dwayne Duxton, of course, who you heard earlier, um his current uh business is uh the Farmer's Pub, and you'll all be aware of uh Farm Tender, which he he uh founded some time ago. So we'll go through those. Um the plan today is just a quick four or five minute snapshot from each of the uh panellists, and then we've got some discussion points to go through, um, and then we'll have some time for questions at the end. Um so I think to kick off will start with you, Duane. Um uh I read on your bio that you came from a 7,000-acre family farm, and now you're an online entrepreneur. Um, from the the background with uh farm tender and now the delay paid now the farmers club. Um perhaps you could just tell us how how your career unfolded and how this has happened.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thanks Lockie. Uh born and bred on the farm at Marnu, which is in the Wimra, East Wimra, so not probably an hour and a half from here. Uh, we've been on the six generations on the farm. My brother Ben, who's been doing a bit of yapping about transmission lines lately, you might have heard him. He's on the farm. We did our succession probably 15 years ago. Uh, I worked on the farm until I was 35 and then discovered the internet and thought, you know, there's a spot there for to start a business there. So, Paula, my wife, and I we moved off the farm and went and lived in a place called Yarrawonga. I started the farm tender business there, which was just me at the start. It's a it's a marketplace business where farmers sort of buy and sell machinery, grain, hay, livestock, and all the above. And that's still going today. It's been going for 15 years now. Um, we employ about uh 10 people in that business, then there's another four people in another business we started called Delay Pay, which is a buy now pay later for farmers. So we learnt how farmers pay. So some pay straight away, some pay seven days, some 14, some months, two months, it just draws out. Delay pay just picks up that gap from when you know gives gives farmers terms and they have to pay for those terms. So it's going well, it's been going for about seven years, and we've done over 120 million in um in funding to farmers. So I stepped away from the farm tender business uh uh in November and relinquished the leadership role in back 12 months before that. So, and then I started the the farmers club. So it's a probably my passion project. So it's a six-day-a-week um newsletter that goes out to farmers, and we do three or four stories. I write three or four stories, um, we do replies, replies from our from our subscribers, uh, we do podcasts, they're all behind the paywall, and we sort of take about work out about a hundred snippets each day of all information and knowledge that we gather, aggregate, and and send it out to the farmers as a newsletter. Everything's in short form, so it's all pick to read. We know farmers are time poor. They're our customer customers, but also we're finding a lot of consultants and things like that who who have farmers as their customers but just want to get a bit closer to the farmer. So um go there and look it up and sign up. Thanks, Loki.

SPEAKER_09

I'm uh I'm a subscriber and I can thoroughly uh recommend it for anyone uh farming or just interested in ag. Uh it's a great way to get your daily uh, I guess, summary of what's happening ag wise, and you can do it in about four or five minutes. So it's uh it's the first thing I read when I get up, and I look forward to it each day. So well done with that, Duane. It's going well. Um just moving on to Brooke Dawson. So I'm just going to run through a few things here. Brooke is a board member of the Australian Meat Industry Council, she's a board member of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, she's the former chairman of the Melbourne Racing Club Foundation, she's a former committee member of the Melbourne Racing Club, she's been a director of the Australian Polo Federation, and now she's the CEO or uh Chair Um of Oakdale Meats. So Brooks' the third generation uh running a monstrous meat business. Now, um all this has come on the back of being a Jillaroo in the Outback, uh, Australia's first female cattle buyer on the rail buying the livestock, uh, and now running a monstrous um uh meat processing and exporting business. So perhaps a snapshot for you, please, Bro.

SPEAKER_04

Uh where would you like me to start?

SPEAKER_09

Well, I think uh I think if you can just speak about Oakdale Meats, really, and the and I guess the size, the scale, the location, uh, and who your customers are and so on.

SPEAKER_04

So um, family business, I'm third generation. It's called Oakdale Meats. We're based in Daniong in Victoria. Uh we're a beef boning room and for the processing plants. We're doing um value added from um dice, portion control. Uh we pick all our own livestock across Australia. Um, it's along as a contract. Uh they come to us and order we can we can do up to about 400 a day as a full scale at the moment. We're about 400 cattle, 400 bodies of meat a day. So it's um we're a medium-sized business in the meat processing world. Um my grandfather was heavily involved in uh export and domestic, and we had the Oakley Avatar back when that was running, and we had butcher shops in Huntingdale. And when I came in, I've been in the business over 20 years, um a lot longer than that, um, and worked my way up through the floor to understand the whole business and how it operates, and now I run it.

SPEAKER_09

And moving on to uh Alistair Ham from Windermere Oil Seat. So um Alistair, everybody drives past, anyone from Ballarat knows where your where your farm is. You've only got to look in the distance and you can see the silos. Um and any agricultural production facility quite like it, in fact. Um so it's a real credit to you. Now I guess what I'd like to know about is uh is is how a local uh broadacre farmer um land producer ends up with uh with a facility um to the at the scale of what you've developed.

SPEAKER_10

Okay, thanks, Lockie. Um started about Windermere Royal Seeds started about 18 years ago now. Uh where we came from, it's a bit of a theme. We're uh multi-generational, I think going fourth generation on that uh on that land now. Next generation is uh coming along. We we operate the business together. Um back a little bit further than that. We uh we were operating, as you suggested, prime lamb cropping, and we had an intensive piggery uh located on the uh on the farm as well. Uh we basically just had a good look at the business and uh what we're doing, where we were going, and uh we felt constrained in that uh it's it's a relatively small farm site. It needed more than just broadacre cropping and lamb production. But the piggery component, because of urban encouragement and and uh uh I guess a couple of other issues, we we we just felt that we we couldn't really grow the business uh in its current location where it was. So after a a lot of soil searching, I guess, we um meaning decide whether to literally relocate and and uh and and uh retain that business model and uh and and grow onwards or or stay where we are, utilize the uh I guess the assets that we had available to us on site and and do something completely different. Um realistically, it it actually probably didn't take all that long to decide that um we wanted to stay where we were, therefore find a uh a business that uh that excited us, that uh that we wanted to do, that uh we felt would be good for the the local area. And uh we we we fell into uh canola, yeah, well canola, oil seed processing, which um started small. I I think we we originally uh crushed about probably 25 ton a day uh there on the site. Um certainly some of the meal we used back at the time was going into the piggery, which helped a bit, and the and the oil, but uh yeah, utilized a few of the uh the relationships we'd we'd built along the way to uh to build a customer base. And uh I'd have to say from that time on we've just been uh I guess growing with the uh the customers and the growers and suppliers.

SPEAKER_09

So you said 25 tons a day when you started. Um what has that grown to now?

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, we we we're sitting on about uh 250, so we've approached about 80,000.

SPEAKER_09

So uh tenfold growth in 18 years. Um you're gonna keep going up the same trajectory.

SPEAKER_10

Um it it is funny, we we look, we're pretty much driven by the people who supply us and the customers that we supply. And uh we we thoroughly enjoy growing. So um, yeah, we'll we'll we'll bring it on.

SPEAKER_09

You mentioned before, um, which I picked up on, you mentioned the importance of uh of finding a business that supported the locals. Uh so there's a large percentage of the canola seed that you crush come from the local area.

SPEAKER_10

Yes. Uh it it I'd I'd have to actually say it it it pains us every year that no matter how much uh storage we seem to put on almost on on an annual basis but but accumulative. By the time that the harvest gets to the Bellarat region, they're often full local seed immediately, at least. But we we we definitely attend that.

SPEAKER_09

Well done. Um we'll look forward to watching you go um to ten times again over the next eight years and uh and the canola meal that comes from that. Um so um just moving on to Phil McFarland. Now, Phil uh is the uh the brains, the ideas man, uh, and now the chairman of uh or CO of the uh of Australian Plant Proteins. Uh full disclosure, my relationship with Australian plant proteins is that my business markets the byproducts for animal feed, um, and it is an amazing story. So uh Phil will give us some details, but uh I guess just in a nutshell, Phil's business uh extracts the protein out of legumes, predominantly faber beans, um, which is then turned into a snapshot, but you'll be able to give us some more detail.

SPEAKER_07

Uh thanks, Lockie. That's that's very accurate. Gimme. Um yeah, so um um grew up just actually just north of Duane, in the Wimmer Malley, Hillful Grain Farm, um rear in uh final accounting, banking. I suppose quickly as I went through banking, watched a lot of money go into non-ag asses and food. It was into various um parts around the world, especially in Australia, that didn't um didn't um went back to our food supply chain. So I'm educated here in Ballarat uh boarding school and university. So a couple of mates from boarding school and put an investment management company together. I left banking um after I convinced them to go into um investment in in basically beyond the farm gate. I've been a farm guy, I can see many where the farms were doing the IP was there, but there was limited food manufacturing and outside established meat processes and dairy and that. In particular for the grains industry, there wasn't. But to get to that, uh we did this in 2012. Um our first brainchild of uh was raise capital and buy businesses and develop a manufacturing business into premium product in the export market. That was the headline, and we didn't go write a write a 70-page um strategy because we knew this is probably going to change. Our first foray was an infant formula business out of Melbourne. We bought out administration, it was licensed to the Chinese market, and that was obviously running rampant. So we thought this solution will be easy, um, and then we got bought out. Um, and then while we're doing that, and why it pales into where I got to, is that um we were tending for Swiss vitamins at the time, they kept on going about plant-based protein at that time, since 2015. Um I thought, what are they talking about? Marketers and all the rest of it, but it kept on going on with it. Um at that time, I had someone actually here in Ballarat who knew me, knew I came from the infant formula business. They knew I was a grain farmer, and they said, Oh, there's a couple of scientists in the Wimra have been working on this ability to extract protein out of legumes and have a chat to them. And I thought, absolutely. So it's a slotting door moment, people might go around and think you've got a great thesis and all the rest, and sometimes it's the idea and meaning of worlds. So with that, got hold of those scientists. Um we then went to CSIRO, we went into an RD process for nearly three years to incubate the process to basically optimise the extraction. Look at um pulses, segregate out the carbohydrate and the fibre, get the protein into a liquid form, give Lockie the carbohydrate and the starch to take whatever, but the protein and dried into high-grade powders, a food ingredient, and be B2B. And then we went and saw some food companies, they loved it. Then we went to a capital raise and we built our first manufacturing facility in Horsham. Um, and why Horsham is because that's the gateway really from Horsham right through to South Australia, where 45% of Australia's pulse. So, out of infant formula, especially working with the Chinese, it was very important to have providence to have the manufacturing near the with a raw material. Someone no one really believes you if you're around in Danny Long or the outer outer rim of Sydney. So we built that, and then um we do five pulses: fava bean, yellow pea, which is out of green peel peas, red lentil, yellow lentil, and mung beans. And mung beans is the only one we bring out of bring out of Queensland. The rest are bought within a 50k radius of our factory in Horsham. We're in food, 20 food categories, um, and I'm certainly more out of the how the market and the world's changed to basically produce a high grade ingredient, an isolate for those who are not aware. Um, as Lockie touched on, um different to a protein powder, we strip out everyone, it's only high grade protein, it's great, it's 87% protein, takes five ton to make one ton, and it's got a little bit of mineral in it and moisture, and it's a low inclusion rate. So we're in sports nutrition in the vegan market, and now predominantly we're working with the um dairy market in ice creams, cheeses, and blending with whey powder, given that the price of whey has has escalated and there's a protein gap. So we're working very closely, I suppose, my message today with the animal industry and the plant, and more importantly, we've got to create a business out of the grains industry, which predominantly has been a commodity base. Let's bulk up containers and exports, so that's what we do.

SPEAKER_09

There's some um there's some great irony in the fact that uh a key customer of Phil's is the vegan food market, and his byproducts I send to all of these feedlots. It's fantastic. As those vegans are eating their vegan burgers, they probably don't realise they're supporting our feedlots. Um so we're just gonna move on to some general topics, and uh one I've just got listed here, and we're gonna um touch a few uh, I guess a personal note here with our panelists, but is passion. So um, and the reason I came up with that is I was reading the bios, and Duane Duxton said that he the Farmers Club is a passion project that he started at 54. Um, so I'm um what that caught my attention. Where did when did this passion commence, Dwayne? And is it in a state of flux or is your passion growing or diminishing, or where's it all at?

SPEAKER_02

I think it's escalating, but um probably them back from years ago, it's more around the writing and the aggregation of information and sending it on to other people.

SPEAKER_09

So you've got if and please, if there's questions you don't want to answer because they're commercial and confidence, I understand. But how many members sign up for you at the farmers club?

SPEAKER_02

I've got I've got a couple of thousand free ones, and there's over six hundred paying members who pay 49 bucks a month to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_09

Um six hundred a bit over six hundred, and you mentioned someone who's got a similar product in the US.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they've got twenty thousand and they charge a hundred bucks Aussie a month. So I don't know, I haven't worked it out, but it's a lot.

SPEAKER_09

No wonder your passion's growing. Um do you have any overseas subscribers?

SPEAKER_02

Uh a few. There's there's you've probably half a dozen, I'd say, but um, it's interesting when you get to 54 and probably every look at looking all the crowd there, you've got to actually find your legacy, I suppose. And this is my legacy. So a legacy to me, something you're absolutely passionate about, like you said. Something that you know may bring in an income. You might have you might have got to a point where you've made a lot of money and income doesn't mean much to you, but you've then you've got to be able to serve customers with your legacy. So that's what Legacy that I'm doing now and um what what I want to do for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, well um I did read in your in the Farmers Club um publication over the last few days, might have been last week, um, you mentioned again, as you have a couple of times, about how you made the tough decision to step away from uh having an operational involvement with farm tender. Now, for something a man who's obviously passionate and and uh and never sort of switches off, that was a big call. Um can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I suppose it's um over time you I'm I'm a guy that sort of you know what's the next thing? What's the next thing what's the next thing? So you sort of not not bored, but I suppose I looked internally in the farm tender business and I thought there's better people than me that can run this business, and I started drifting off to doing the farmers club thing, and a couple of things happened. You know, we we went through a bit of a tight cash crunch probably 18 months ago, and that lasted for probably 12 months. We're well and truly back on track, and I attributed that back to me, you know, it was under my watch, so I I took my eye off the ball a little bit, got the right people in the business and you know corrected all that.

SPEAKER_09

So that's to your credit. If you've if you've uh if you can identify yourself as the issue and deal with that's that's uh absolutely um is fantastic for the other people that are in the business and and uh the business itself. Now, Brooke, um you're obviously passionate about your business, third generation, and uh you put your heart and soul into it. Are you passionate about your business or the industry or both?

SPEAKER_04

Definitely both. Uh to me, it all starts back with the farmer, uh, but it's also been able to say to the consumer, we can put at the centre of your plate a steak anywhere in the world, particularly across Australia. We're very we have a very big footprint across Australia, but to be able to know that our steak is being eaten by the average person or in a top-end restaurant, I'm proud to be able to do that. Um, but it all comes back from how you buy, what you're buying, from the relationship you build and through the processing chain.

SPEAKER_09

So and uh from a from a uh oilseed crushers perspective, Alistair, um yeah, what where does your passion come from for your business and how do you keep it alive?

SPEAKER_01

Passion.

SPEAKER_09

Um just go back a step. Would you, yes, if I may, would you consider would you consider yourself passionate about your business or not?

SPEAKER_10

I I I guess so. I mean I'm thinking how do I define passion? It's just good fun. I just I just really enjoy being there. I I enjoy being part of a team. I I enjoy dealing with the customers that we do that we uh interact with, I and deal with I enjoy dealing with the uh the producers that supply us.

SPEAKER_09

It's uh and do you enjoy the cut and thrust of business or the manufacturing side?

SPEAKER_10

Um probably fair to say I'm I'm probably more involved in the uh the the trading side and the financial side of the business. But Andrew is uh is a great project manager and building up the uh the engineering, the uh the manufacturing side beautifully. So that the team works well, but uh um yeah, I I'm probably in the the position where I'm I'm best suited at the moment.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, I I think from my perspective, a good barometer of people's passion again for their business is uh how easy they are to contact outside the hours of nine to five, and I transact with everyone on the panel here, and if I ring them at any time on any day of the week at any stage, that'll answer their phones. And I think that's testing to I guess the work and effort and passion that they put into their business. Um, and Phil, from a motivation perspective, how do you keep yourself motivated? You're living in Melbourne, you've got the factory down there, you've had ups and downs with the with the um the uh the the market for plant protein. How do you keep yourself motivated and up and about?

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, I think for me it's and my wife would probably read when she hears this, but it's it's the I thrilled the chase, but I suppose it's an emerging industry, we we we're not banked on 80 years of history, so you've kind of you're gonna have a playbook, and I suppose in all my career in in finance and that I was in the transformation space. I never never went and settled well in a re regular month-end process and things that I sort of map out. And that's different, people are wired differently. But travel internationally after uni, I was wanting change. So I suppose this I find it, and I suppose with food and that and and then how people are changing, and especially the grains industry, I guess, where there's so much untapped. I call it kind of like the iron ore of the grow of the food industry, where we really haven't minded it. We've sort of got to see we grow three million ton of this stuff. Why are you going to use it 6,000 tonne annually? And I suppose there's elements in it that is yet to explore. I just spoke to Alistair before about canola. We did a lot of RD on canola mill where the protein in there is really good, but we throw that out to animal feed. So if steady on if we kept on not taking Lockheed out of it, I suppose that's what motivates me because I suppose as non-scientist, but I can coordinate good people who have got really great ideas and probably make me look a little bit better, but unleash their talent. And I think that's what motivates me more. I don't need to come with a science background or my finance, but it's a combination of people you bring into your ecosystem and unleash them, and you'll find they'll fly.

SPEAKER_09

And how do you motivate your staff?

SPEAKER_07

Cool.

SPEAKER_09

Um other than money.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, money, money, yeah. And I think that's that's the bit is that the yoga ownership. I mean, we've got a highly technology, technology-driven um factory up there in Horsham. It's built for 24-7. We can run the whole shift for 12 hours with three to four staff. It's automation. So you teach and you and you're going into a market where you can't get food specialists around every corner in Horsham. So we've got people who out of childcare who are really good at processes and teaching them, so motivating them to own it, but also add ideas into how to refine it because we don't, as I said, we don't have a reference book of 10 years, this is the only way to do it. And sometimes their ideas, and sometimes we over-engineer it with my engineers, and it's just a straight process in front of us. So it's motive, but being transparent with them, tell us where the market is, we're opening up. You see them go in the supermarket and buy a product within products, so they're taking an interest and help them buy into it. Sometimes you've got to watch the big shopping list they come back with to say we should do all these things because you know they'll take all year to do it. But you just got to give them insights and I feel like a bit of ownership, and I think without having to, it's always a dollar conversation.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09

Um one thing that's been brought up a bit when we've had meetings leading into today is problem solving. Um, and Brooke, to you, it's often said that a successful business leader is a successful problem solver. And I can only imagine the problems that you confront each day at the moment with freight, extreme livestock prices, strong dollar, making export difficult, uh, the impact of the cost of living on uh on people's buying habits. Um, how do you deal with those sorts of daily issues from a personal perspective?

SPEAKER_04

Personally, when we talk to our staff about it, I think it's really important to be decisive in your decision making and hold your line on it. You need to be able to consult your staff because staff are as only good as you are. You've got to put trust into your people, and that goes right for us. We have um about 150 employees, so it starts from the person on the floor all the way through to the CEO or to myself of how we operate, and we all see each other as one and work together whatever the problem is. There are some big challenges in our industry at the moment, and Simon spoke about a few of them today and highlighted a few to me that um I need to take away and think about a little bit differently. But the uh the market is changing and the people are there to support you through that, so it's finding a way to work together and knowing that you've just got to make the decision and be clear about what you're there to do.

SPEAKER_08

I didn't notice you were grimacing big time when Sim was talking about the increase in the livestock values.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that's gonna be challenging if that keeps going because the meat market is not um aligned to that at all. And he spoke heavily about America, but the rest of the world is at some point, and and it feels like there's going to be, but understanding the challenges we have with our um herd rebuild and the slaughter numbers, and just one is a bit off topic, but there's 20,000 head in the south that are needed extra a week due to the efficiencies we run in our processing plants, and we didn't have that, and now we do. So it there's a lot of competition for the animal.

SPEAKER_09

Um and problems at work, we all have them. Alistair, if you if you find something which is you know markets difficult or or any other operational or um sales type issues in your business, can you leave them at the office when you go home or do you take them home and discuss them with your family and loved ones?

SPEAKER_10

Um basically leave them at the office, but uh we're a family business, so so yeah, we we talk about things at home at night, but I think problematic things are best not spoken about at night, they're best left in the office to discuss. And and to be honest, have a have a good thorough discussion about uh about how to solve that particular problem in the meeting room and uh and and and leave it at that. Yeah, uh family business, um our our wives are clearly interested in what's going on. So so we if and Andrew and I uh thrash out issues, but um yeah, then report back if you like to to the bosses.

SPEAKER_09

So so to put you on the spot, is there um is there a problem or a challenge in in your business that you're facing now uh that you'd be happy to share with the audience?

SPEAKER_10

A problem.

SPEAKER_09

Look is there some is there a pressure from some part of the market or the industry?

SPEAKER_10

The issues that we've got at the moment are the the issues we always have. You're just trying to balance the the input of the canola seed with the output of two two different products, um and and dealing with the customers and the suppliers, the uh uh uh tweaking the plant to be to make it as uh as uh efficient, uh as effective as it possibly can be. Um just on that. Everything's long long term, if you like. Sorry to jump in, but but our contracts are long term, our relations are our relationships are long term, and and uh yeah, to have if something jumped out at us, it'd have to be a very major breakdown, and uh we would just have to hope, and and we do have a fairly impressive uh shed for spare parts. We we've got the bits that uh don't require a uh a six-week term uh timeline to fix it, basically.

SPEAKER_09

So so if you crush one ton of canola seed, um just to thrust that bit, you need to find a home for a um as a proportion which goes off as stock and a proportion to go into the food industry as oil.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, 60-40. So 60% of the uh of the seed goes off to stock feed or goes goes to meal, yeah, protein meal, and 40% is uh is oil.

SPEAKER_09

So two completely different customer bases, two different products, yeah, and you've got to manage both.

SPEAKER_10

That's our constant challenge, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09

So how about you, Duane? Is there a is there a um is there a problem which is that you're facing at the moment that you weren't in um time gone by?

SPEAKER_02

Probably not. I spoke about the farm and a cash flow issue we had before that's been resolved, as I said, but I think I think Barry Clark summed it up in the last one, and you know, when he was tackling the guy on the Jet Star flight, he never panicked and he's always observing. We can sort of take a lot of lessons away from that with uh how we solve our problems because he just waited the pounce, he was calm and collected and stayed calm and collected all the way through. And I think we get a bit wound up about problems, you know. We see it in the media about what's going on with fuel and fertilizer, and we can all get caught up in that. So I think we've just got to relax, take a deep breath.

SPEAKER_09

Um, and just back on back to you, Alistair. Um I'm interested in competition in various businesses. So you operate in uh in an industry that's probably uh largely uh not controlled but certainly supplied by two massive corporations in Grown Corp and Kargil. So you've got these two monstrous global businesses, and then you've got Windermere oil seats here in Ballarat. How do you play in the same spaces as those two?

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, it's it's certainly a question I asked myself before we began is uh what is going to happen? Because there wasn't realistically anybody else other than those those two major players. That's not quite true. There was there were some a couple of very small players who I did communicate with before I began. Realistically, um they have their challenges, we have ours. Not everybody wants to uh wants to deal with uh a multinational. Um we have our our areas of uh comparative advantage, shall we say, being a very flat management um system where we're uh we're part of the team, you know, so so we're we're pretty quick on our feet. But yeah, but um they because of economies of scale uh are certainly able to uh to extract, to to process uh uh at a cheaper price. So yeah, one one kind of balances out the other, and we we find our our customer base each and and we get along.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, Brooke and I discussed this earlier, and she's saying um being able to make family business, make decisions quickly, uh you know, probably hopefully service your customers better, um, don't have to wait for a board meeting next month before you can make a decision, all those sorts of things which come hopefully gives you some competitive advantage, which offsets the the the dearer cost of production perhaps. Yeah, yeah. And uh but you feel like do you have do you have market forces that set your price, or do you set your price, or how do you work from a competition perspective?

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, so on that market, we set our own price. We're the only isolate manufacturer in this part of the world, and we're an ingredient goes into a recipe stack, so it's really up to someone to decide the price of our ingredient going in is cost effective and gives the nutritional performance. Now, at the moment, working with whey, which when we started this business, it was never on our radar. Now whey's at close to$50, and where it's sort of under$20 a kilo, so we're cheap. But others would have seen us expensive compared to what Chinese the Chinese can make it for. But we have a non-chemical process and it comes into the quality of the product, and the raw material at FarmGate is so crystal clean, we don't have any issues of um quality in terms of raw material. So um B2B fitting in though, of where the market's going, I suppose that presents the next challenge. Our business was just B2B, and then we thought we'll give the product and people will formulate with plant protein, it performs subtly different to normal protein from dairy in particular and other industries. So my time particularly is sucked into formulation with customers to the point where there's so many new things coming up. I want it for clear protein for weight loss, I want it for mortification for yogurts, I want it for egg replacement. We've got a number of those projects going now, but the risk is trying to chase too much too quickly when we're still trying to get, but the market is starting to demand that we need solutions here because they're branding-wise trying to keep up with the world market. When there's a shortage of protein and available powder to go into, they want the recipes right now, and there's only a few of us that know how plant works here. What I was not traditionally and not been a fine score, but over 10 years I've learnt what works and what doesn't. And sometimes you just say we've got to keep within the swim lanes. Yeah, we keep chasing too much, we'll achieve nothing.

SPEAKER_09

And pricing, uh Duane, if you if you decide tomorrow to put your your uh subscription up by 25% or down by 25%, it can have any major impact on your market, and if so, um where do you reckon the sort of the sensitivity is?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's a good question. Um I remember going into it, into setting a and and we know farmers, you know, they're starting to learn about subscriptions, but they don't really like them. But when I was setting it, always wanted to be on the high side. I think you might do farm online, it might be$12 a week or something like that.

SPEAKER_09

So just so just for the audience, so you're$40?

SPEAKER_02

$40, yeah,$49.

SPEAKER_09

$49 per month.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_02

So I think um farm online's much less, and weekly times and those ones as well. But I wanted to go in high because I I just studied the market and didn't think that if I go in low, I was going to get any any more customers. So and we've got to make a living out of it.

SPEAKER_09

So well, it's very unique because all the information's there. Cropping, beef, dairy, um, ended with ag, all those little snapshots, it's fantastic because you rather than scrolling through a newspaper or your social media feed, you've already summarised them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, exactly. And that's you know, that's that's our sort of uniqueness, I suppose. This this what I'm what we're doing is absolutely massive in America. It's called the um the creator community, and it's just going nuts in America, it will come here too. So rather than you you know, buy the Herald Sun, the Weekly Times, you'll start to sort of segregate where you get your information from, um, and that's obviously where we fit in.

SPEAKER_09

And and pricing for you, Brooke, uh I assume the meat industry is extremely uh price sensitive, but if you're up by five, ten percent tomorrow, up or down, does that have a big impact on your immediate sales?

SPEAKER_04

No, it doesn't. So um our sales are all forecasted out. So what you're buying, your import cost of your livestock is not necessarily effective your or for export market because you can go quite long on export, you can go three months up to six months, depending on what who you're supplying and the type of animal you're supplying into. But the um domestically that can change 20 cents overnight at the moment, so um that can dramatically uh uh cause challenges for you, uh, who you're supplying at the customer base.

SPEAKER_09

And and food trends. Um uh Phil mentioned some of his clusters before, but uh is it um is your business impacted, Brooke, by health conscious, taste, budget, convenience? Which of those things, what are the consumers making the decisions on when they come to choose what meat they're gonna buy?

SPEAKER_04

Uh it's quite fascinating at the moment. We supply coals as an example, they're finding it um very challenging with the price of meat and the consumer of what they're prepared to pay for meat. And there's a real shift from eating uh premium steak cut to mince because it's a lot cheaper for you to buy mints, and you can when you're feeding a family, you can feed a family um with a meal spread, and it costs you, say,$12 a meal rather than a steak at or$30 or whatever it is at the time, what you've been buy. Um, and people are diversifying from beef and lamb into chicken and pork because of the cost of red meat at the moment.

SPEAKER_09

And uh just getting towards the end of the questions here, and uh I I don't want it to drag on too long, but I guess just looking forward from here, um I'm interested in in the panel's plans or um what sort of roadmap they have for the future of their own business. So um might might just uh pass over to you, Alsa. Um is succession in your business, um, your son Andrew's in it, is that something that you talk about a lot?

SPEAKER_10

Uh it's I guess kind of ongoing, but it um it's it's a it's a path that started a long time ago and and we we just tweak it along the way, I suppose. But but yeah, no, it's uh it's it's it's it's set in uh not set in stone but set on course.

SPEAKER_09

Absolutely. Do you have a roadmap? Dwayne, like you said, this is your legacy. What what happens when Duane Ducks is no longer here?

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's interesting because with the other business, I spent all my time working out how I can get out of them, and this one is just me. So we're actually bringing someone on on Monday to write for us, so we're gonna start bringing outside people. So we'll probably expand that way, but I I'm just happy to cruise along as it is. I obviously like to do for the rest of my time.

SPEAKER_09

And APP, Phil, have you got have you got a get out plan or growth or hang in there and for the time being?

SPEAKER_07

We just finished our stay a life plan, so um um and and and not something that we we've had to go through a restructure to because uh you know we we deal with an asset class that is it's in capital intense, and we're an alternative asset class, so we could ask sort of you know where where we're gonna. And obviously with our shareholder change, um we've stripped our supply chain back so there are more contact peace with customers. So, from an operation perspective, and you asked that question before, embed people have knowledge that they know where they're going to step up into it if I'm not around, that they can step up and run that business. That's pretty much how Warsham runs now. I don't have to sit there and watch the shifts or how we're running heat and dryers and things like that. My guys are all over that. Um, and they they can see that there's no one between them and me. So then I've painted that picture. I think on the sales side it becomes um how do you make this engine that you know that you're getting, and it's always the best way, it's right. How you're getting you're getting pulled into the demand rather than you're pushing the demand, and I think there's gonna be a point where I can do that, we can put more people around to here my store. I don't know if it's the AI uh agent that'll follow me around and sort of do the skill, but I think there's enough logic in our marketing pitch that I can probably bring in other people to do that and go to more strategic role because our next asset may not be here in Australia, as in a build. Um, because sometimes there's other markets that want it closer faster, they don't want 70 day sale time, they want it now. So, and we're not the only country in the world growing pulses. That a little bit is a little bit selfish suggestion plan because Australia's gonna lose a little bit of that because we Really have to do on our own here in Australia. There's not a lot of um you know, especially capital markets that are that that in love with food manufacturing, I'm sure we all find that, um, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_09

Now I'm going to go through the four on the panel here on a scale of one to ten. I'm gonna start with you, Brooke. Um, where is your confidence in firstly the long-term future of your business? And secondly, the long-term future of ag in Australia.

SPEAKER_04

So our business, um, well, we have survived through very tough times and good times in um meat processing. Uh say at the moment it is the challenges time we've ever seen for the industry. So um sprinking our teeth and um bunkering down at the moment for the red meat processing sector. So we'll do that. Uh we've we've done it before, we'll do it again. From ag as a whole, I think ag in Australia has a huge future, and it's only just really getting stronger. Um and more the more efficient. I think farmers are getting more efficient. So the more efficient you get, there's a lot of data out there now, so you can make better decision making.

SPEAKER_09

Alistair?

SPEAKER_10

You know, very confident. Um, the industry, the uh the uh the oil seed industry, if you like, um it's ridden away probably since the 90s now, since its inception. Uh the growers have it as an integral part of their uh their cropping rotation. Genetics means that their yields are getting larger, the oil content in the seeds are getting higher. Um, we we're here for the long term. We uh everything we do on on site really we um we're thinking our grandkids will be running it, so we ought to do it properly.

SPEAKER_09

It's just uh so hardening to hear a local any business, but a local family business with that attitude. Um just to re-quote what Alice just said, he thinks his grandkids will be running it now. Um hopefully, uh, hopefully we can watch this progress, and um I'll be around to see grandkids running it, but I'm sure they'll do a good job for you. Um, Phil?

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, I'm confident sort of the the plant the protein market because that's where the drive is. There's a number of big drivers at the moment. Um, Australian AG, certainly FarmGate benefit's grown, value of assets. I am concerned about um innovation. If someone comes with a new idea, and I'm hearing um you know some of our big RD centers are going to be shut, and people out of JOS. So, where does someone go to incubate new ideas? And that's either existing business or new new businesses. And it's a big jump to go from a concept through to a$30 million build. No one will give you finance for that. So I think Australia lacking a strategy, food security or beyond the farm gate. Um, we cannot get too trapped. I will say we are far too trapped in the commodity cycle, and that exposure could hurt us when things swing the other way. If we don't balance out with true value add and stop thinking we're going to feed the world, pick your customer markets, as you talked about, Brooke and Alistair, of course. We need to pick and understand that customer base and then make it more sustainable with both commodity and value add. And it's the nice that it's beyond farm gate, and that needs investment.

SPEAKER_09

It's very well said. Ag generally?

SPEAKER_07

Ag generally, I think you know, less people stop eating. I mean, it's just that in crime is going to be always going well, and people are going to eat. So AI will never ever impact you know what's going to happen in agriculture, and that's one of the categories that's going to be untouched, except for more analytics. You go you can't replace the IP we've built in ag in Australia that I think is going to be a safe haven.

SPEAKER_02

Okay? I've never so 10 for me out of my business because I've never seen a better model than the subscription model, recurring revenue, it's the most amazing thing going around. And we're always talking up ag so 10 for ag as well, bro.

SPEAKER_09

So onwards and upwards for you as well. Now um, we'll go back the other way. Um, last question from me, and then we'll get some questions from the floor. Um, Duane, if you were advising a young Australian on how to build a career in in um agriculture, what would your key message be?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, like a year ago I would have said, go and learn all the skills, you know. Let's talk about farming here, you know, learn all the skill general skills, and gradually you'll get there, and you know, you might take over the farm one day and you can sort of stamp your bit on it. But today I think the younger ones have got to be a bit more aggressive or a lot more aggressive, get to learn more earlier, and all of a sudden, instead of being 50 when they're you know come into their own, they're 32. So just get into it as early as you can. If you've got kids and grandkids, just encourage them to just go flat out, you know, find out what they're passionate about at the start, and then just go hard for it.

SPEAKER_09

Alice's grandkids will be running the plant next week.

SPEAKER_07

Get them into it.

SPEAKER_09

Bill, how would you what what advice would you give to someone?

SPEAKER_07

Oh, coming to I mean, don't underestimate the value of being a farm kid coming off a farm because you've been learned to like I was. Dad taught me the tractor, up and down the paddock, you'll be right. Don't hit the fence and watch the telephone poles, you'll learn things pretty quickly. Um so use that. Pick the, I suppose the general builds business skills, understand how it goes with in terms of a business, don't be too narrow down one path, and then back yourself, like with food, and there is that more awareness now. People, where does our food come back? Be the marketability around our business where the farm, the farmer's story, is way more than I ever thought, especially the way they farm now to manage climate change and things, which the younger generation is way more aware of it now than we were. So that is an asset in your skill share, and you should market that up front when you're going for your career choices.

SPEAKER_09

Alistair.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, um, well, specific to say oil seeds, pick your passion, really. There's so much to choose from, isn't there? There's from from genetics to uh agronomy to to processing, refining, value adding. Um yeah, well's your oyster.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Yep, simple as that.

SPEAKER_09

Chief Brook, if uh if someone rings you up and says I'm 15 or 16 years old and I'm passionate about the meat industry, what do you say to them?

SPEAKER_04

Harness them and take them through it. So um I think that the industry has got big gaps in meat processing, uh, and we're using a lot of uh labor from overseas to help fill that gap. But there's a lot of that there's some really cool jobs in uh meat processing, and there's a lot of opportunities just finding the people that really want to do it from a process. I don't think people understand how they can get into it. So being able to, we need to do that better in how we market the industry to help and nourish those people through. But it is go hard and go early, learn what you can so you can learn on how to do it and be more efficient in what you're doing and educate yourself. Not saying you need to do a uni degree, but be on farm, be practical and um get get in and have a crap here.

SPEAKER_09

That's great. So we'll pass the floor now. Before we do, uh Kirsten, I have a I have a prize here for the best question, and you're the judge. Okay?

SPEAKER_03

Brilliant. Yep. I've got the mic for whoever needs it. One we've got one there. And two, lovely.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. Uh thanks very much for the presentation. Two-part question. How concerned are you as value adding to agriculture? Are you about farm secur biosecurity? Thinking about big grid driving over our paddocks and transmission line production. And also, are you concerned in any way about value adding when there's contamination potential from any of this renewable or mining production in our areas that you're talking about? Do you understand the question?

SPEAKER_09

It's actually a bit um scratchy trying to hear back this way. So uh maybe Kirsten could pass the question on.

SPEAKER_00

Are you, as value adders, concerned about contamination of our agricultural products regarding renewables and mining? It's a good question.

SPEAKER_09

Um, what about throw deal on this one, Phil?

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, so um obviously the selection of new food manufacturing plants can't be near mines that have got dust floating through the air, so we're very mindful of where we place our manufacturing plant where I am in Horsham. There's one of our insurance quality assurance program assessment, who was in their area. Um we were looking at an area on the outer rim of Horsham where mines were going in and it was straight no. The second site we looked at was near sheepyards, it's not against the animal interest, but we couldn't have that cross-contamination. So, our insurers, I put the insurance guys up front and get them to advise where we place things. Um, I backed the Farm Assurity or Quality Insurance Program at FarmGate to manage that. But that, and I take your point, is it a moving market that you need to just our customers are asking more and more questions about the supply chain? Heavy metals in soils for me, use of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and I have to test it every six months and prove it. And I'll get knocked back on price if there's any on product, if if there's any detection of that. So that is ever immersion. I I worry that when a commodity in grains, that we sort of what's big bulk, who cares goes in the container, the questions are getting asked now because we go into value add, prove through your supply chain you're controlling this. And I don't own any some of those assets. So your point is a very good question.

SPEAKER_09

I think it's a um the microplastics is a huge thing to like, but the these some of these renewables, uh this um net zero, and I guess I'm making public my views on this, but 70 72% of the arable land in Victoria needs to be covered by some sort of a uh solar panel or a wind turbine. 72% of the arable country just let that sink in in the in this state to reach net zero. That is nuts.

SPEAKER_06

Uh Brooke and Phil, you both um said that you concentrate mainly on the export market. Um and Brooke, one of my concerns is that so many abattoirs in uh Australia are concentrating on international rather than domestic supply. Um and I wonder why international is so uh uh attractive for for your product and whether it has anything to do with the coal and Woolworths impact on Australian farmers that we're a price taker rather than a price maker in these equations?

SPEAKER_04

Uh it's a good question. So we're actually about 70% domestic. Um so we've been supplying domestic for over 50 years, we have a very strong foothold. A lot of the brands you would have in your household we supply. Uh what I would say is to take out the bell curves of our industry, you need to have an export market because you can't do it without it, and that's really the driver. At the moment, a lot of the exporters have very high value, particularly in America, Japan, Korea, um, as certain parts of the world are getting more advanced in how they eat, that's becoming a big stronghold of what we're doing. And I think something like 70% of Australian meat, red meat, has to be exported because we can't consume it for the amount of the volume of what we do. So Australia is the food bowl of the world, and we should be all proud of what we produce for our world. Uh, but at the same time, you we need our export market because of the volumes that Australia can produce. But it is you need to be able to push that bell curve one way or the other at certain times, and the only way to do that is to be able to have supply at different global markets.

SPEAKER_03

Any other questions? One more.

SPEAKER_02

Lockie, never seen a more passionate man about business than you. Where do your where does your passion come from?

SPEAKER_09

Um good question. Um I'm not really sure to be answered. I think I have to be passionate um about ag and my business, uh, because I've got to fund my wife's spending habits who's sitting here. So whack. Uh no, that is entirely untrue. Um uh I just have a love of of ag and I have had since I guess for as long as I can remember, um, and and of business, and I've managed to collide the two, and I know it's cliche, but if you do what you love every day, you don't work, and and uh um I I'm I love what I do. The passions in my working life has been thoroughbred racing and agriculture, and I've been lucky enough to mix the two. Um and uh our business, we've got current production, so we run um a beef and uh lamb operation, we've got cattle trading and feedlots, we've also got a uh small but large animal feed business. We have a feed mill and we sell about 300,000 tonnes of various animal feeds around Australia, um, and all goes hand in hand. So, you know, for me, I can I can um I can practice what I love at my farms. I'm not a very good farmer, but I love it. Um and I can be involved with my training and my background and my interest in in animal nutrition and bring it all together to make my business.

SPEAKER_03

Last question from the floor. Uh can we do that?

SPEAKER_02

How do you manage your time? You're we've got a lot going on, you know, with the the the feed um procurement business.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, time is the thing I'm I have the least of, probably, to be fair. Um, and um for me um the way to manage that is twofold. One is to have really good staff. So um I I'd proudly say that our our farm staff and our admin staff are as good as there is. Like we would have the best team of farm managers across our three properties and farm hands, and now hopefully uh my suppliers here would attest that my admin team are very, very good. Like we don't we we we we would be um for for the number of transactions we have each day, there's very few issues and things are done well. Um and I'm very proud of the staff from both sides of my business. And the second thing for me is just to try to surround myself with good um the best professional services I can. So, you know, quite open, Damian Butler's our accountant. Uh butlers do a fantastic job for us. Um and you know, Heinz Laura here, they help us. Like we try and get the best we can around us, and then I rely on them heavily because frankly I'm too busy to be able to be trying to make decisions about things that there's people that are far better versed to talk about.

SPEAKER_02

Just on the admin side, that was something you identified as a weakness in the industry that you did for a start. Just talk straight.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, so um stock feed and animal feed and grain trading uh probably inherently has pretty poor administration, and I think it's that's because of the physical constraints between picking up a load of grain or or feed, processing it somewhere, and then being delivered and the the the time lag in uh in the flow on of way dockets and delivery notes and contracts and so on. Uh so we've done our best to um to adopt the best technology, um, have the best training to try to streamline those things so that we can we can um give our customers and our suppliers um hassle-free service. And I think if you know if we if we if we transact smoothly, um there's not many things that we can be to do different to our to our opposition. Um there's a lot of people in our in the same space that I'm in, but if the nutrition is good and the ambience right and the price is okay, generally it's not too bad.

SPEAKER_03

Alright, last question here from the floor.

SPEAKER_05

This one's Derb Brooke. Uh, how did you find getting into the uh meat buying? Was that a big step for you in your career? Because I haven't met another female meat buyer.

SPEAKER_04

So for me, when I became a cattle buyer, is really due to my father. Um, he said, We need a cattle buyer, you're it. Um and I tested a lot of people because when I started, which was about 20 years ago, there's no there was no females in a cattle market unless they were doing a clerk job effectively. Um just due to time and getting respect from my colleagues that I had to work with and knowing my job. So now I can step into pretty much any market across the Eastern Seaboard. Everyone knows who I am. I know most people, but not all of them, um, but they all allow me to buy. So it's it's it's a bit of a political game cattle buying, and so is sheep buying, but yeah, it's taken it's taken time. But uh now I have a team of buyers on the road because I can't be everywhere and they buy on my behalf. But it's yeah, it's it was a challenge initially. Um, but it really is learning your skill set and knowing being confident.

SPEAKER_09

Okay, so no more questions from anyone. Thanks very much for coming. Big round of applause, please, for our panelists. Um I'm sure you'll all agree. Uh fascinating stories, wonderful businesses, and terrific people. So big thanks to the four of you for for offering up your time and and and your knowledge and wisdom. Thank you. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. Thank you. Uh big round of applause for Loughlin and Mackenzie as well. Thank you. Thanks, team, and uh token of uh our appreciation uh from Farmers Day Out and uh Commerce Ballarat. So thank you all.