S6 Ep24: Beef processor and respected industry leader Terry Nolan, on the importance of relationships

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Today's episode of The Weekly Grill, proudly brought to you by Rhinogard
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Hello everyone,
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Welcome again. You are On the Grill with Beef Central. My name is
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Kerry Lonergan and today's guest has a truly remarkable history.
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It all started with his dad nearly 60 years ago with
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the opening of a butcher shop at Gympie in the hinterland of Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
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As we'll see, Terry Nolan learned a lot from those early days and
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as he grew the business to outstanding success.
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He's just spoken to a sellout crowd at the Queensland Rural
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Press Club ECHA Breakfast. Terry Nolan from Nolan's Meats.
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It's a genuine treat in these special circumstances to have you on
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the grill for Beef Central. Thank you, Kerry, and glad to be here.
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Terry, you started your RPC address talking about relationships
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and how crucial they are in building a business.
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You mentioned a lot of people, and we'll get to some of those names,
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but you started with the most important lessons in relationships you learned,
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and that was from your late father. Let's start with your dad. What were the
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core relationship visions and visions and values you've
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taken from him? Well, um, I think hard work gets you a long way
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towards where you need to go. You can be the brightest
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person in the room, but unless you apply yourself and, um,
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and do the hard yakka, as they'd say, you probably don't get there.
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There's plenty of people that are very intelligent, highly educated,
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but aren't necessarily successful businessmen. And business
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is just a long marathon. Yeah,
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your dad had what you called nuggets of wisdom.
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Any nuggets in particular you recall? I, I do like
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it when we're, you know, doing something and we'd be a bit hesitant, and Dad
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would say, get in amongst it and you won't be so far away. And I
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think it's so true. And, you know, we've got that many advisors and
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people telling us how to run our business and how to do things these days,
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but have they actually had their hands on the tools? Have they been in amongst
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it? And I'm not going to criticise our politicians, but, you know,
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wouldn't it be great to think that everybody that led
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the country or was in a senior leadership role in the country
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had had to have that sort of baptism of fire through small
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business? It's not an easy road for small businesses in this country,
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and I think that get in amongst it and you won't be so far away
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is a nice little adage to adopt. Small business drives the country.
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Absolutely. You mentioned also that the importance of children,
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young kids, having regular chores and jobs around the
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house. Yes, um, I was a bit of a ratbag of a kid,
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Kerry, and, um, yeah, some people said I was a red cordial kid,
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you know, add sugar and I go berserk. Some people said I had ADHD,
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and, um, there's some people said I've got a touch of the tism, and I'm
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not sure if that's politically correct, but yeah, I could have been a bit mischievous
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in my younger days. And I think all too often people
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reach for that depressant or suppressant or some sort of drug to control control you.
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Dad said, just burn the energy off him, he'll be right. So, um,
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yeah, we were enticed into doing, um,
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jobs we didn't sort of plan. But I'm not the brightest kid, and it took
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me quite a few years to work it out that, um, you know, when we
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want to light a fire, we've got to go and stick pick the paddock first
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and burn a bit of energy. Then we can have the delayed gratification, if you
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call it that, and you can light the fire and stoke the fire afterwards.
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And I think that's probably a big important point I didn't mentioned
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today, today's delayed gratification. There's an age-old study on that
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about the take one marshmallow now or 2 marshmallows in 15
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minutes' time, and most kids take the one now rather than— they can't stand
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the delayed gratification. I think that's an important thing you've got to understand if
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you're in business. Work and you will be rewarded. Correct. Yeah, well said, Kerry.
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Terry, you hardly started with a silver spoon in your mouth. Your dad had the
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butcher shop and you left school after Year 12 to start working in meatworks
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as a trainee. Yep. And you already had a weekend job as
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well, working on a property. Oh, I've got the utmost
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respect for Ted and May Carr, now passed on. Their son Philip runs that property.
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They took me in as a young child. Probably I was a handful for Mum
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and Dad with 6 or 5 other children. I think one of 6. And,
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um, I could have been the troublesome one. And Dad knew
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I loved horses and livestock and always had a dog since I was a little
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guy. And he organized with Ted Carr to take
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me every weekend out there. And oh, it was just like a dream job,
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you know what I mean? They were wonderful times as a teenager.
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And, um, didn't work for money, just worked for the
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experience. And, um, and I know that when, um,
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the first time I drove myself out there as a 17-year-old, I just got my
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license, got a loan on one of Dad's utes, and I drove myself out there.
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And Mr. Carr paid me— or Mr. and Mrs. Carr paid me $45 a day,
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and I got $90 for the weekend. Wow. I was only getting $46 for
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working 5 days at the meatworks. So that caused a bit of angst in the
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family, but I was soon corrected about delayed gratification.
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What was the traineeship you had? It wasn't an official traineeship,
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but we had 4 slaughtermen there, and I started as a, as a boy
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on the slaughter floor, sweeping the floor, carrying the offal, doing those menial
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tasks. And that was while I was still at school. Then when I left school
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Um, I don't know if I should say this, but had a wild schoolies week
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and got back from schoolies and started on the Monday at the meatworks and
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never left. My dear departed brother Tony,
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he put it well. We had a bit of a farewell dinner before he passed,
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and he said he's had the most fortunate life. Dad bought a little sandpit out
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at East Creek Road, and we sort of built cubby
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houses, built dams, built piggeries. The buildings just
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got bigger. And he said, I, I've never ever got out of that sandpit in
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my 60 years. But he said, I know that my time's coming close, so it's
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about time I got out of the sandpit. You fellas better look after it.
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Yeah, how would you go on the chain these days? Uh, too slow.
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I used to be able to set the pace, and— but when you get to—
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and I shouldn't say this, but when you get plus 40, you realize
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why athletes retire in their early to mid-30s.
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Yeah, it's time for a break. You are on The Grill for Beef Central,
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Here we are back on the grill with Beef Central. Our guest today is Terry
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Nolan. Now with us, uh, with a croaky voice, but he's still able
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to ask a question or two, our principal of Beef Central, Jon Condon. Jon,
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you've got something for Terry? I just absolutely enjoyed your presentation this
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morning, Terry. The question I'd like to ask, just based on your response
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to Kerry, is having the experience of swinging a knife in a plant As
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a processing business owner and manager, how important
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is it— was it for you and your brothers to have that on-the-ground,
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hands-on experience in terms of did you manage people and the business
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better as a result of it? Invaluable experience,
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John, if I can say that. You had to learn the trade,
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and I'm not looking for any empathy or sympathy here.
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Sometimes if you're the boss's son, a few hard-headed old
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men can make it a bit harder for you and try to put a few
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obstacles in your way. So you, by default, you learn some people skills
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to manage those around you. And it was quite
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ironic, I think when I was just 18 and
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there was only a handful of us out there, and the foreman had had a
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run-in with a state government inspector and he walked
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out. And Dad sort of went to talk to him to try and
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cajole him to come back, and he refused to come back.
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And then Dad said, well, you better look after it till I find else.
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So I was 18 and I was running just a handful, team of 5
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or 6 at the abattoir at the time. And I was still learning the
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trade, I was still learning the people skills. We still had a performance
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culture, like a competitive culture, and you'd have to prove
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that you could do the job as good as the next man beside you,
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otherwise you had no credibility. And if they were siding cattle in a cradle
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and I happened to be eviscerating, or gutting you'd call it, we'd be racing,
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I had to beat them, or if I— or vice versa. And I still got
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scars in my hand from where the hand slid down a knife and got
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23 stitches and 2 tendons cut. But, um, I did win that race,
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but I just, um, nearly took my hand off doing it. But safety's
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a good, a good lesson out of that firsthand experience with having a safe workplace.
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Now, the core of your business has always been the meatworks, but you
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started or got more heavily involved as meatworks around Australia were
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closing down largely. Yeah. What did you
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see that others couldn't do? It's probably not what I saw.
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Dad was a bit of a visionary. And, um, a fellow John Neeson
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we used to service years ago, he said, Pat, how have you got all these
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boys involved? What's been your secret? And Dad said,
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I just stand behind the shed. So Dad was always on hand,
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but he didn't interfere, didn't micromanage us, if you know what I mean. And so
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we could make a decision. If we made a mistake and fell down and picked
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ourselves up, that's okay. But if it got real bad, Dad would step in.
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We had a lot of freedom from a pretty young age. And yeah, it was
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a— it's a nice little saying, I manage by standing behind the shed. You're still
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present, but you're not micromanaging. I've been told
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that one of the— by one of your admirers, that whenever you heard of a
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meatworks closing down, you were first on the scene. Oh, that's The
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equipment that was available at a bargain price. Brother Michael's the specialist in
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that. Um, living on a bit of borrowed money and 6 children and trying to
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kick off an enterprise. And, um, yeah, we always wanted to try and
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buy things cheaper than the rate. So I don't know how
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many closing down sales my brother Michael would have been to, but we had
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the beef chain out of Wallangarra, this restrainer out of Dubbo, the viscera
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table at Akwirra, the refrigeration— some of the refrigeration equipment
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and the wiring out of Oxley. And wherever we went, we see a bargain.
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And that's an interesting little story. When Oxley shut and
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we'd bought the copper wire out of the whole plant,
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oodles of it, and we had to crawl around there and with
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a tomahawk and chop up the copper cables. You, you hope they weren't live,
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but we might get in trouble these days. But it was in the old
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days of cork ceilings, you know, there was no Coolite or expanded
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polystyrene, polyethylene styrene as you call it. And you'd be going there to be,
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you know, rats as big as a liter Coke bottle, and you'd be
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chopping up bits of cable. We pulled all the cable out. There's about
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6 semi-trailer loads of cable. My other brother Tony came home from
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uni, and he's electrical engineer, and he tested every single core
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of every cable. And some of them was like 50-core cable, just massive,
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and some little ones. We tested every little bit,
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and then we cut off what didn't work or what was tested faulty,
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put it on a truck, and we got more for the copper offcuts than we
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paid for the original cabling. And so we've still used some of
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that to wire a lot of our plant. That's a good story about chasing a
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bargain. Yeah, and the closing down sale had a bit of work involved too.
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It wasn't given to you. You had to do these— a lot of people would
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have thought it was too hard to get out. But even with all this,
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you still had to get the throughput and crucially the markets.
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Was this tough going, getting customers from long-established
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processes? And you come across some wonderful people, and I mentioned Don
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Bridgeford there today. He had a mate up in Hervey
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Bay, a fella called Ray Gordon, and Ray Gordon used to run Torquay
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Butchery. And, um, he said, I'll give you the fella's name, he's a good fellow.
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So I rang Ray Gordon, I said, could I sell you a body of beef?
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Yeah, that'll be right. And Ray and I struck up a real good friendship.
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He would end up buying 10 bodies of beef a week off us, and it
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started to fill our truck to run to Hervey Bay. So we had a
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big hold in Hervey Bay and Maryborough, and that was where FJ
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Walkers had shut down at Maryborough plant. And, um,
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yeah, everyone was going there. It was probably just far enough out of the reach
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of Brisbane they could do it sort of 2 days a week out of Cannon
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Hill, but we'd do it 5 days a week. And Hervey Bay,
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Maryborough is quite kind to us. And then as we got a bit of volume,
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we sort of went south then towards the city and, and developed
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our trade one-on-one. But the important reason I mentioned
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Ray Gordon is that he gave a testimonial to other butchers,
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you know, they'd say, where's he getting his meat from? And he used to call
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me Tiger. He said, ring my little mate Tiger, he'll get you some. He used
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to call me Terry the Tiger. I used to hate that. There's nothing more valuable
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than a word-of-mouth recommendation, and he would give a word-of-mouth
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recommendation. People are ringing me, Ray said to give you a call, you'd help me
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out. And, and that's what we did. It wasn't any fantastic strategic
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planning, it was just based on service and, and on-time delivery. One point everybody
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has noticed about your early days, you're not frightened to have a go. For example,
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lot feeding, to take this on, as Sir Humphrey would say in Yes Minister,
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very brave decision. How was this, the initial journey
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into the intricacies of lot feeding? Well, I've mentioned
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Don Bridgeford. He's a wonderful guy, but he's departed now, of course. Um,
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but he rang me out of the blue, introduced himself, and he wanted to get
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some meat, some body beef, up into Gladstone. And he had
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a relation had a shop up there in Gladstone, and, um,
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we could only process— he could only process 5 or 6 a week.
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And he would have to, uh, he said, I want someone who can look after
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the cattle the week that they were standing there waiting to be slaughtered. Because you
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can't put 5 cattle on a truck and freight them. Even the body truck's probably
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not reasonable freight. But Don would freight over 10 or 12
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a fortnight. We'd arrive Thursday night, we'd process them on Friday, deliver them on Monday.
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The other 5 would sit there till the following Friday. And I'd
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sort of noticed that the cattle from the second week,
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the meat was pinker, the fat was whiter, the bruising was less,
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and it was just better quality. And it was all about this sort of replenishment
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of glycogen, as we know now. And I don't do a meat science lesson,
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but when there's abundant glycogen in the carcass, you've got a more
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favorable rate of pH decline 'cause that converts into lactic acid.
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And so all good meat's in that 5.3 to 5.7 pH range.
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I didn't know what we were doing, I just knew the meat was good.
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And then anyway, they sold the butcher shop, and, and I'd
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repaired this bin quite a few times, a bit of plaster of Paris in the
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bottom where it's rusted out. And, um, and I'd tell Don I'd
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done that. Oh, thanks very much, appreciate that. And then when it stopped, I said,
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I better send that bin back to you. He said, no, you can keep it.
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So, um, yeah, I had a free grain bin of my own, and that's how—
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that's literally how we started feeding cattle. That Dad had fed um,
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like a bag of grain to cattle out in the paddock. But he didn't
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believe that there was a future in lock feeding. He thought cattle needed to roam
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in the paddock. And he was the— he never said he was wrong.
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We looked over the fence about the 40 or 50-day mark, and next thing Dad's
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bought 200 cattle to feed grain. So that's what started us going.
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Just got to be brave enough to back your own judgment. So you're among Australia's
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first ever feedlots, small time, but yeah, but certainly the Um,
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Robin Harts, Dougal Camerons, Don Bridgford, and Ewan Morgan were all
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in what the original Stockyard Group— of course, Harts have kept that
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name now, and, and Dougal's sold out of Aranui and those places.
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So yeah, it was off the back of those, uh, those people we learned.
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Yeah, started feeding double figures.
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What's your throughput now per year? Oh, we do about, um,
16:18.615 --> 16:21.820
we're doing about 200,000 a year, but we do about 800 a day,
16:22.140 --> 16:26.135
5 days a week. So that's the— John
16:27.534 --> 16:30.880
Condon's got another question first. Sorry, Terry, that got a bit awkward there.
16:30.928 --> 16:34.208
You might want to just tidy that little bit up. Yeah. So Terry, you did
16:34.708 --> 16:37.856
mention this morning, um, during the question session, you know,
16:38.483 --> 16:41.905
you were asked about, uh, the advances that have been
16:41.938 --> 16:45.721
made towards grain feeding in Australia, adopting a more US-style model.
16:46.450 --> 16:50.483
Do you see that continuing, and are we on a tangent here which just continues,
16:50.662 --> 16:53.058
or where does the— where do we find a balance in this country?
16:54.136 --> 16:57.917
John, I honestly didn't see it coming, and I don't think anyone saw
16:58.417 --> 17:01.490
COVID coming. And I said in my presentation this morning,
17:01.522 --> 17:05.015
we all have visions of supermarket shelves running
17:05.047 --> 17:08.619
out of toilet paper, but what was happening in the meat cabinet was
17:08.651 --> 17:12.032
they were running out of mince, and the last things to sell were the most
17:12.532 --> 17:17.239
expensive cuts. And there's been a gravitation to the versatility
17:17.463 --> 17:21.004
of mince and the price of mince, so people can do their spag bol
17:21.504 --> 17:24.883
or their lasagna or their sausage roll or whatever resales or something.
17:25.381 --> 17:28.867
Very versatile product and good quality product. And, you know,
17:28.995 --> 17:32.464
even in our business, we didn't previously kill a cow 10 years ago,
17:33.027 --> 17:36.544
and now we're probably doing 1,500 a week because there's
17:37.044 --> 17:40.463
this insatiable demand— value of grinding meat— yeah, for 90CL trim.
17:41.041 --> 17:43.965
And I've been a big supporter of MSA. I do think it's the best meat
17:44.465 --> 17:47.771
science in the world. I'm a bit biased there, but, um, you know, we're trying
17:47.819 --> 17:51.654
to grade every cut and sort of disappoints
17:52.154 --> 17:55.548
me. We'll have whole insides or outside, silver sides or
17:55.644 --> 17:58.752
topsides for the audience, I guess you'd say, and/or knuckles, your rounds,
17:58.849 --> 18:02.213
you know. We'll be throwing those lean cuts straight into trim packs off
18:02.229 --> 18:05.274
grain-fed cattle, mind you. And you think, what are we doing here? Surely there's
18:05.774 --> 18:09.504
a better, you know, higher purpose for them. But the 90CL trim has been
18:10.004 --> 18:13.445
very strong, and through COVID it corrected
18:13.945 --> 18:17.339
a bit post-COVID, and then the cost of living crisis kicked in
18:17.916 --> 18:21.603
And it's back up there again. Naughty trim demand's
18:22.020 --> 18:25.371
very, very strong. Following on from that, the industry's put an awful
18:25.871 --> 18:29.187
lot of emphasis on meat quality in terms of genetic selection in the last 15
18:29.235 --> 18:32.730
or 20 years. Should we be placing greater emphasis
18:32.922 --> 18:36.641
on traits like growth rate, yield, to sort of reflect this
18:37.090 --> 18:40.489
balance that we're seeing now between a lean meat play and a
18:40.989 --> 18:44.353
meat quality play? I think you've got to understand the market you're targeting first.
18:44.401 --> 18:47.351
It's hard to have a broad brush. This is what Australia should do.
18:47.993 --> 18:51.496
There'll always be a, a niche or a, or a
18:51.528 --> 18:54.629
market stream for a particular type of animal. I can
18:54.661 --> 18:59.096
remember talking to Peter Holmes a Court back in the— before they launched their 1824.
18:59.626 --> 19:02.663
He said, Terry, where do you see the future of beef branding?
19:03.402 --> 19:07.178
I said, well, you need a consistent supply of meat to start
19:07.678 --> 19:10.440
with. MSA's got to be in your stable whether you like it or not.
19:11.291 --> 19:14.984
And I said, Wagyu's getting a bit of a a
19:15.209 --> 19:18.752
point of difference. I said I'd have a Wagyu brand, and I said
19:19.252 --> 19:22.664
if your country's suitable for it, I'd have an organic brand. And I think if
19:23.164 --> 19:26.063
you had those 3 in your stable, you'd have a whole lot of versatility.
19:26.672 --> 19:30.327
That doesn't quite answer your question, John, in that if you
19:30.375 --> 19:33.822
had an organic trim, you might be getting $3 or $4 a
19:34.322 --> 19:37.911
kilo more than the conventional— MSA is not it, but the trim off
19:38.411 --> 19:41.983
an MSA animal. And the same with the Wagyu. We had Wagyu sausages
19:42.483 --> 19:46.105
for breakfast. I mean, That's great and it's nice promotion, but what's
19:46.605 --> 19:49.789
the difference between a Wagyu sausage and a beef sausage? So we get this point
19:50.289 --> 19:54.093
of difference. And so you really need to understand your market,
19:54.435 --> 19:58.716
in my opinion, and then breed the cattle that suit that situation.
19:59.392 --> 20:02.775
Even to the point— I went to the presentation, the Paddock to Plate,
20:02.855 --> 20:05.551
last night. They're talking about the magnificent carcass weights,
20:05.616 --> 20:08.652
440, 500 kilos, and that sort of stuff. And that's fantastic.
20:09.703 --> 20:12.316
But if you actually had any empathy for the people working on the chain,
20:12.973 --> 20:15.874
some of those carcasses are hard to break down, hard to pull apart, you know.
20:16.435 --> 20:19.802
And, and the— and, um, I'm— I think
20:20.302 --> 20:24.082
the pig industry's done it well. You get like peas in a pod, and some
20:24.595 --> 20:28.185
pigs grow faster than others. But— or chicken's done it well. And I'm not saying
20:28.217 --> 20:32.001
we should copy their flavor profile, but if
20:32.065 --> 20:36.233
we could have a carcass between 250 kilos and 350
20:36.733 --> 20:40.128
kilos— the, the 200 to 300 are small enough to get T-bones
20:40.224 --> 20:43.755
off, the 300 to 350 are large enough to get strip loins
20:44.255 --> 20:47.721
off. You'd take a lot of variability out of the plant, out of the operation.
20:48.187 --> 20:52.089
And let's face it, you know, 47% of our cost is
20:52.201 --> 20:55.589
the cost of labor that goes into processing. And you can say
20:55.653 --> 20:59.346
we're the dearest in the world at processing. Well, you tell me where you try
20:59.846 --> 21:02.541
and find people and pay them nothing to work in the meatworks. It just— it
21:03.041 --> 21:06.250
doesn't happen. So we're stuck with high production costs whether we like it.
21:06.668 --> 21:10.669
So yes, use the differentiation of the market to pick the marble score 9
21:11.169 --> 21:15.216
and get a premium for that. Use the MSA premium
21:15.264 --> 21:18.196
if you like to have your good everyday eating cuts for people.
21:19.676 --> 21:23.082
If you're on a sustainability
21:23.291 --> 21:26.601
route or something and you think organic's the way to go, I actually
21:27.101 --> 21:30.863
see organics probably growing faster than Wagyu, to be honest with you, on a
21:31.363 --> 21:35.342
global— I'm not saying in Australia, I'm saying on a global stage. So Yeah,
21:35.663 --> 21:39.241
just pick your point of differentiation. And if I could just finish by saying,
21:39.273 --> 21:42.594
I, I mentioned a good mate of mine who's had a hotel,
21:43.428 --> 21:46.894
and, uh, he said it used to be so good, people would come in and
21:47.394 --> 21:51.033
they'd buy a Forex or a Gold. You had 2 beers on tap. Now they
21:51.129 --> 21:54.370
walk in there and, what would you like, sir? Well, what have you got?
21:54.579 --> 21:57.563
And they go down 3 streams of boutique beers.
21:58.109 --> 22:01.717
Choice is wonderful, he said, but I have 4 bar staff, or I used
22:02.217 --> 22:04.794
to have one, and you're spending half your time waiting for the customer to make
22:05.294 --> 22:08.064
a decision, and you can't say hurry up, but they want to know what's the
22:08.564 --> 22:12.151
difference between whatever, little creatures to pale ale to whatever,
22:12.712 --> 22:15.917
and they can't make a decision. The, the choice is confounding them.
22:16.382 --> 22:20.709
He said that's added to my cost of running the hotel. So we
22:21.209 --> 22:24.139
don't want to get to the meat industry to that stage either, where we have
22:24.155 --> 22:28.001
so many small lines, small SKUs, that they're
22:28.018 --> 22:31.642
difficult to manage, hard to age, hard to manufacture.
22:31.818 --> 22:35.984
So a bit of focus is required. And, you know, are you trying—
22:36.241 --> 22:39.345
I said about the paradox of choice, is less more,
22:39.490 --> 22:42.599
is more less? And I think that's pretty important. You think
22:43.099 --> 22:46.535
you're giving more choice, but you're adding exponentially to the cost of producing.
22:47.213 --> 22:49.874
That makes sense. So just on your comments about carcass weights,
22:50.020 --> 22:54.028
our friends in the United States, fed steer carcasses now are
22:54.044 --> 22:57.503
consistently over 900 pounds and some closer to
22:58.003 --> 23:01.093
1,000. 450 to 500 kgs.
23:01.574 --> 23:05.310
Is there a, is there a warning in that for Australia as we embrace lot
23:05.810 --> 23:09.349
feeding more? Personally, I'd say yes, but I
23:09.849 --> 23:13.069
know there would be a lot of processors in Australia that would say he's mad,
23:13.421 --> 23:17.028
we need to get the weights up, it's kilos across the chain. But I
23:17.528 --> 23:20.812
also think there's an optimum level, you know, because your car can do 200
23:20.860 --> 23:23.665
k's an hour, it doesn't mean you should drive at 200 k's an hour everywhere.
23:23.987 --> 23:27.611
You're asking for an accident to happen. So because you've got the
23:28.111 --> 23:31.234
genetic potential to go to 500 kilos, should you do that?
23:31.637 --> 23:33.891
I'm not sure. Where does sanity prevail?
23:35.035 --> 23:38.094
Time for a break. We're On the Grill with Beef Central. Our guest today,
23:38.159 --> 23:43.553
Terry Nolan. Back in a moment.
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From feed to fertility, Ceres Gen 6
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With the right insights, you can reduce guesswork and maximise
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profit per head. Today's podcast is sponsored by Ceres Tag.
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Here we are back on the grill with Beef Central. Our guest today is Terry
24:18.057 --> 24:21.483
Nolan. Can I get to the subject
24:21.983 --> 24:25.202
of the names that you mentioned in your Rural Press Club address this morning?
24:25.475 --> 24:28.408
You mentioned a lot of names. The first one you mentioned was Alan Tease.
24:29.066 --> 24:32.544
Oh, I do. I think Alan's a tremendous, um,
24:33.554 --> 24:37.321
statesman for the industry, I, I termed it. A lot of people used to
24:37.821 --> 24:41.248
call Alan the Silver Fox, but, um, I just think
24:41.748 --> 24:44.871
he thought about things, and when the conversation was, um,
24:45.353 --> 24:48.293
galloping, he'd bring it back, slow it down.
24:48.567 --> 24:51.346
We've got to really understand what we're saying there, you know. So he'd analyze,
24:51.395 --> 24:54.737
he'd buy time, and he'd weigh up the strategic
24:55.237 --> 24:59.252
options. And my special reference today was that we
24:59.752 --> 25:03.606
went out on a limb to do meat safety enhancement program
25:04.106 --> 25:08.250
into the US, and there was a small group of small operators, domestic operators,
25:08.314 --> 25:11.607
that were keen to do that. They needed one pilot plant Um,
25:12.265 --> 25:15.299
Roger Fletcher was the last of the 6 pilots to give up, and then he,
25:15.700 --> 25:19.471
he gave up because of overseas market access. It set itself
25:19.971 --> 25:23.627
up for a, um, a domestic person on the way up rather
25:23.660 --> 25:27.190
than an export person with all market access having to trim back to do the
25:27.690 --> 25:31.122
pilot. So, um, and I think Alan could see this, and we were around
25:31.622 --> 25:35.342
the table at an AMIC thing, and the processes spoke against it. Alan was
25:35.359 --> 25:38.520
chairing, and we had sort of half export, half domestic, and Alan
25:38.568 --> 25:42.275
was the chair. And Alan supported the
25:42.775 --> 25:46.012
trial going ahead. And of course, the rest is history. We did the trial,
25:46.028 --> 25:50.215
it was successful, and it's now the only system
25:50.715 --> 25:53.407
in Australia. A lot of people couldn't see that. They thought, you know,
25:54.065 --> 25:57.144
government will keep paying, we'll get free inspection, we'll lobby the government to pay.
25:57.818 --> 26:00.930
Government's been in a user-pays mode for many years,
26:01.107 --> 26:04.411
and I don't see that coming back anywhere. Have you ever seen a
26:04.911 --> 26:07.619
government that wants to tighten their belt and cut spending? It's more about another tax
26:08.119 --> 26:11.885
or another collection point. So, you know, read the room. We're going to
26:11.949 --> 26:15.365
have user-pays regulators, and I just don't see that changing.
26:15.413 --> 26:18.973
So Alan was smart enough to provide the support,
26:18.989 --> 26:22.196
even though we were the guinea pig to do the legwork, you know. Another name
26:22.696 --> 26:26.446
you mentioned was, uh, the famous Roger Fletcher. You speak to Roger quite
26:26.946 --> 26:30.407
regularly. I do. I, I like Roger, um, and, and that's true.
26:30.455 --> 26:32.540
And I don't think he'd mind me saying this— a few people said, what do
26:33.040 --> 26:36.404
you talk to Roger for? He's only in it for Roger. Well, I sort
26:36.904 --> 26:39.738
of take a bit of offense to that. Yeah, Roger wants to make an earn,
26:39.995 --> 26:43.745
no doubt about that, but he does so much wonderful stuff behind
26:43.778 --> 26:47.416
the scenes, market access, and, and he pushes the boundaries on
26:47.528 --> 26:50.943
things. And, um, I relate to him, if that makes sense. Um,
26:51.375 --> 26:54.886
you haven't always got to go with the tide, and Roger's been one
26:54.998 --> 26:58.044
to swim against the tide a bit when he has to, and I think he's
26:58.544 --> 27:01.907
been very successful. I think we need more entrepreneurial people like Roger in
27:01.955 --> 27:05.460
the He tells the stories about him driving. He sits down
27:05.960 --> 27:08.180
and scribbles a bit of something on the table. Look at this. And he throws
27:08.680 --> 27:11.860
a tantrum in the meetings. And I'm just an old drover. Yeah,
27:12.360 --> 27:15.600
he's just an old drover. He's far from just an old drover. And, um,
27:16.100 --> 27:19.900
I sort of, uh, yeah, I've had some very interesting conversations with Roger, and I,
27:20.400 --> 27:22.420
I call him a mate. I hope he'd think the same of me, but,
27:22.920 --> 27:26.240
um, he's a sheepy and I'm a beefy, so I found him very
27:26.740 --> 27:29.980
supportive around industry policy tables and arguing with
27:30.480 --> 27:33.056
the department where we needed to see some reform and that sort of thing.
27:33.600 --> 27:36.645
It's, it's remarkable. Many of the names you mentioned as helping
27:36.709 --> 27:40.924
and mentoring you, especially in the early days, would be regarded as competitors.
27:41.020 --> 27:45.010
But it's a tough business, meat processing. Sometimes it's
27:45.042 --> 27:48.792
boom or bust, and there's almost unique brand of camaraderie
27:48.888 --> 27:52.285
or esprit de corps among processors. Is that a fair description, or is
27:52.317 --> 27:55.346
that a bit over the top and it's just hard most of the time?
27:56.083 --> 27:59.576
I think it's true, and It's probably changed
27:59.608 --> 28:03.277
a bit, and I've got to be careful how I say this. Um, there was
28:03.453 --> 28:06.913
a, um, a period in the last 5
28:07.413 --> 28:10.646
or 10 years where certain processors thought it was good to sit
28:10.662 --> 28:13.193
outside the tent. And, um,
28:14.427 --> 28:18.064
we had massive problems with COVID in some
28:18.564 --> 28:21.540
of the southern plants, shut for 2 and 3 weeks, and people couldn't get in
28:21.556 --> 28:24.808
there. And some people suspended their own China license
28:24.856 --> 28:27.243
thinking they were doing the right thing. If they suspended, they'd be seen in good
28:27.743 --> 28:31.250
light. China never let them re-registered till a couple of years later and
28:31.811 --> 28:35.562
heading into meat shortages. And I'd spoken to David Littleproud,
28:35.594 --> 28:39.105
I just, I was chairing the, um, AMIC at the time, and I said,
28:39.121 --> 28:42.615
we really need to get together, David, and, and get this problem
28:42.663 --> 28:46.078
solved. We can't have delays because of COVID we still got to have
28:46.578 --> 28:50.085
food security. And he said, Terry, our government's up for supporting
28:50.585 --> 28:52.506
you, but you've got to get everyone in the one tent. So I had to
28:52.987 --> 28:56.660
go and see the, the players that weren't in and Strangely
28:57.160 --> 29:00.369
enough, when we got in the room, we got on well, you know. And I
29:00.869 --> 29:03.982
don't think COVID affected our industry as much as it did in some other
29:04.482 --> 29:08.365
countries, and there wasn't the huge drop-off in production
29:08.397 --> 29:12.010
that could have happened. Yeah, I just think, you know, David Littleproud— if I
29:12.510 --> 29:14.691
can drop a name— he's one of those people that said he'd do something and
29:15.191 --> 29:18.513
he did it. A lot of people make promises, but David promised he'd get
29:18.657 --> 29:22.207
the recovery underway post or during COVID
29:22.707 --> 29:26.592
actually. And he did, he set up a task force, a meat modernisation
29:26.705 --> 29:30.031
task force, which myself and David Hazelhurst
29:30.079 --> 29:33.694
chaired. So we had a government rep and an industry rep, or co-chaired I
29:34.194 --> 29:38.240
should say. And, uh, we brought some amazing advances to industry
29:38.336 --> 29:41.871
and remote auditing and all that sort of thing. So we had
29:42.371 --> 29:46.353
those, uh, you know, RealWear glasses and we hosted audits for people in
29:46.466 --> 29:50.159
Turkey and Saudi Arabia in the middle of COVID with
29:50.659 --> 29:54.543
one of our team wearing the vision wear glasses around and talking to
29:54.575 --> 29:57.802
the subject. And that was, you know, because they all want to come and do
29:58.302 --> 30:02.008
in-country reviews. We did in-country reviews with them sitting
30:02.057 --> 30:05.187
in their office in wherever, you know, overseas office.
30:05.252 --> 30:07.981
And, um, that was an innovation that was good,
30:08.543 --> 30:11.417
although I think people like to get on a plane, so it's reverted back to
30:11.917 --> 30:16.009
the bad old days now. I'd like to still do virtual audits earlier than
30:16.509 --> 30:20.553
COVID. But, and as you— but as your industry, personal industry, was progressing,
30:21.307 --> 30:24.278
you responded to the old saying, if you want something done, give it to a
30:24.342 --> 30:27.537
busy person. And over a period of time, you joined several boards,
30:27.746 --> 30:31.182
industry boards, quasi-government boards, etc., and offered
30:31.682 --> 30:34.955
your expertise and experience. A lot of people would simply say, I don't have the
30:35.455 --> 30:38.407
time, but you jumped in and became heavily involved.
30:39.274 --> 30:42.981
And I I have mixed emotions about that. If it wasn't
30:43.481 --> 30:46.590
for my 2 brothers to be at home at the plant and keeping the home
30:47.090 --> 30:50.521
fires burning, I wouldn't have got time to do that. And, um,
30:51.067 --> 30:54.083
Gary Hartwood, he'd see my brothers, he'd say,
30:54.677 --> 30:57.356
oh, Terry loves coming to these things, he has a few beers and a social.
30:57.581 --> 31:01.030
Is he the social director or whatever? And, um, but we did look— that
31:01.530 --> 31:02.811
was Gary having a go at me— but we did a lot of work.
31:02.875 --> 31:05.940
But you always felt as though the team
31:06.440 --> 31:10.146
at home and, um, had things under control. We'd check in daily
31:10.258 --> 31:13.709
and multiple times daily, and if it's a serious issue,
31:13.870 --> 31:17.289
Michael and Tony were there to bounce ideas off. So yeah, I guess I've
31:17.305 --> 31:20.756
been a bit of the face in industry forums for the family, but I just
31:21.256 --> 31:24.352
want to reiterate it always has been a family affair, and it's, um,
31:24.866 --> 31:28.365
we couldn't have done what we've done without 3 of us with
31:29.264 --> 31:32.539
unique and different skills to apply to different parts of industry.
31:33.133 --> 31:36.198
So Terry, you did mention this morning that early in your career you
31:37.129 --> 31:40.772
felt somewhat isolated and not particularly motivated to engage in
31:40.820 --> 31:45.186
industry affairs, but over time you did a complete reversal
31:45.234 --> 31:48.749
on that. And you did talk at one point about— you described them as
31:48.781 --> 31:52.681
the drunks under the grandstand, the people sniping away from the sidelines,
31:52.713 --> 31:56.003
throwing stones. The importance of engaging and being part
31:56.503 --> 32:00.095
of the process rather than simply providing criticism. Talk to us a little bit about
32:00.595 --> 32:03.127
your experiences in that field. Yeah, a lot of things we've been involved with.
32:03.705 --> 32:07.443
Project 1 was never going to work. We had 100% success rate.
32:08.839 --> 32:12.513
We weren't in Project 2, we weren't exporters, but we did pick
32:13.013 --> 32:16.300
up the pieces and make it work and, and couldn't have done that without John
32:16.800 --> 32:20.407
Langbridge, you know, from Aquis at the time. MSA, they were tough days.
32:20.471 --> 32:22.894
People didn't want to spend money on MSA and all the rest of it.
32:23.503 --> 32:26.776
And, um, yeah, we said we'll do some trial work there and all
32:26.808 --> 32:30.373
the rest of it and 2 particular things that are of interest to
32:30.873 --> 32:34.580
me in MSA. When it first started, it was British breeds
32:35.080 --> 32:37.664
only, zero Bos indicus content. And, um,
32:38.210 --> 32:41.068
we're in subtropical Queensland,
32:41.502 --> 32:44.569
we have a parasite burden, whether it be ticks, buffalo fly,
32:44.778 --> 32:48.648
whatever. And there's an old saying, um, you know, cattle for the country and
32:49.148 --> 32:53.032
bulls for the market. Were we going to cast aside our northern herd
32:53.386 --> 32:56.194
and think they'll just go to live export? Just nonsense really,
32:56.418 --> 33:00.025
or just hamburger trade. So we lobbied pretty hard. A fella,
33:00.041 --> 33:04.193
John Croker, you may remember from ABA, Australian Brahman Breeders— AWA,
33:04.209 --> 33:07.286
I should say. We lobbied pretty hard to set up a special
33:07.319 --> 33:11.262
trial for Brahman cross cattle, and we got a pathway. There was long-distance
33:11.762 --> 33:15.430
travel. We set up a trial with AACO to truck cattle
33:15.930 --> 33:19.517
down from, uh, Ganoo feedlot, and we got
33:19.581 --> 33:23.189
a long-distance travel pathway. You know, all those sorts of
33:23.689 --> 33:28.177
things. And I can say I got a corrective action request issued
33:28.677 --> 33:32.123
by Ausmeat at the time because the electrical stimulation had to be,
33:32.332 --> 33:35.572
um, 40 seconds at 200 milliamps.
33:36.342 --> 33:40.175
And we could see that when we did that, the pH
33:40.208 --> 33:44.378
decline dropped too rapidly. And you see it in high-stress
33:44.878 --> 33:48.613
pigs, a thing they call PSE, pale soft exudate of meat, and where
33:49.113 --> 33:52.288
all the juice runs out of the it loses its water-holding capacity. So we had
33:52.320 --> 33:55.596
turned our stimulator down to about, um, 12 seconds,
33:55.628 --> 33:58.486
I think it was at the time, and we got— had an audit, and then
33:58.986 --> 34:02.854
we got a corrective action request because we weren't obeying the standard. I said
34:03.354 --> 34:06.322
the standard's wrong, we've done this, we've done this, and, and we've seen the improvement
34:06.354 --> 34:09.629
by doing this. And no, we couldn't close it out, we had to turn it
34:09.662 --> 34:13.242
back up, knowingly ruining beef to meet the regulation.
34:13.997 --> 34:17.223
And I got onto Rod Polkinghorne And Rod can be like a dog with
34:17.723 --> 34:20.578
a bone. I like Rod, he can be difficult.
34:21.139 --> 34:24.205
I told him about our experience, he said, well, let's test it, Terry, we'll test
34:24.705 --> 34:27.222
it. And he did the rate of pH decline. They've since come up with a
34:27.722 --> 34:31.667
pH window, and I can honestly say that was a prompt from
34:31.716 --> 34:35.648
our plant with a bit of hands-on knowledge. You know, use the knife, watch the
34:36.148 --> 34:39.692
meat, quarter the beef. But I didn't have the IQ or
34:40.192 --> 34:43.764
the resources or whatever I could see the effect, but I didn't know what
34:44.264 --> 34:47.354
was causing it. And, um, Rod Polkinghorne did
34:47.854 --> 34:50.655
a joint trial, I think, with Dr. Komari and then someone at Texas A&M.
34:51.136 --> 34:53.780
And hey, we found this new thing, there's a pH window.
34:54.805 --> 34:58.555
And that's been one of the cornerstones of MSA,
34:58.571 --> 35:02.353
in my opinion. So yeah, you do have to— I've probably gone off track
35:02.369 --> 35:05.206
there a little bit— you do have to be a bit brave and do things
35:05.302 --> 35:09.023
other people won't do. So Terry, You've been part of the MSA trajectory
35:09.523 --> 35:13.227
since before it started in the steering committee, and in the, in the very early
35:13.259 --> 35:16.436
days, I always regarded the Nolan business as being one
35:16.485 --> 35:19.935
of the absolute islands of support for it from the processing industry.
35:20.544 --> 35:24.139
How close did MSA come to falling over in those early
35:24.235 --> 35:27.203
years after it was established through lack of use? Yeah,
35:27.781 --> 35:29.979
well, I couldn't mention everyone in the,
35:30.525 --> 35:34.248
in my presentation this morning, but certainly David Crombie
35:34.344 --> 35:37.970
gave it a horsepower and a negotiation and a leadership
35:38.470 --> 35:42.436
that we we needed. And there's another fellow behind the scenes,
35:42.709 --> 35:46.323
John Webster, and, uh, oh, John was a terrier
35:46.823 --> 35:50.580
as well, and he never gave up. And, um, I just
35:51.080 --> 35:54.837
thought if just a couple of us could support this, we might
35:55.337 --> 35:59.174
just keep it going. And, um, you know, everybody can laugh at
35:59.674 --> 36:03.672
the millions of tests done, but we've got such a robust data
36:03.753 --> 36:07.429
bank. We know everything from time on feed
36:07.929 --> 36:11.937
to stress to dentition to ossification correlations to whatever.
36:12.498 --> 36:15.947
It's very, very powerful resource. I'm glad we've done it. I think
36:16.447 --> 36:19.685
the industry is better off for doing it. And even the people, as I said,
36:19.701 --> 36:23.230
the drunks under the scoreboard that tried to cruel it, they still use
36:23.730 --> 36:27.048
it in their systems today. They don't use the MSA,
36:27.320 --> 36:31.106
but they use the science behind it. So I still think
36:31.170 --> 36:34.781
it was money well spent for industry and people would debate
36:35.281 --> 36:38.105
that, but in my opinion, it's money well spent. One of the highlights of your
36:38.605 --> 36:42.584
achievements in the bureaucratic world, MSA getting through despite
36:43.084 --> 36:46.213
all the issues. Yes, um, and, and like, there's a big team there.
36:46.277 --> 36:50.195
There's Jason Strong and there's, um, John Webster, and you
36:50.695 --> 36:54.225
needed David Thomason to help with the marketing team. You needed Crombie, you know.
36:54.611 --> 36:58.304
I go back to an old mate, Pat Dempsey. He was involved there,
36:58.320 --> 37:01.687
um, Phil Morley was involved. There was a big team
37:01.736 --> 37:05.334
of people. And do you think it was at a point where it was in
37:05.448 --> 37:08.830
peril? Did— was there a risk of MSA falling over? Yes, at a
37:08.862 --> 37:12.535
number, number of stages, I'd say. And, um, I just think,
37:12.808 --> 37:15.902
yeah, whatever John Thompson at ANU and, um,
37:16.450 --> 37:20.290
and Rod Polkinghorne started to just drip out little bits of successes,
37:20.968 --> 37:24.404
I think it gradually picked up momentum. But I've got this funny
37:24.501 --> 37:28.164
view of the world that we're over our industry. We're a slow-moving industry,
37:29.142 --> 37:33.743
and it almost gets to 15 years from concept
37:34.243 --> 37:36.933
to adoption. And I've seen it many, many times. And, you know,
37:37.654 --> 37:41.084
we were doing RFID of cattle
37:41.501 --> 37:44.595
in '96, but it didn't really get full adoption until 2011.
37:45.108 --> 37:48.603
Jim Cross did trials up in your area. Yeah, in those very, very early
37:48.619 --> 37:52.001
years. Yeah, I went to Tokyo with Henry Palaszczuk
37:52.501 --> 37:56.185
when he was minister. That must have been 2002 or '03 to talk about electronic
37:56.685 --> 38:00.097
identification of cattle. Before NIS got up there, you know.
38:00.578 --> 38:03.383
And we were— we had cattle tested in the field. We wanted,
38:03.688 --> 38:07.440
you know, clarity of data. So that was a 15-year adoption.
38:07.937 --> 38:11.688
The Project 1 was a 15-year adoption. The pickup of
38:11.800 --> 38:15.408
Project 2 to the next thing was a 15-year adoption. There's just so
38:15.908 --> 38:19.223
many issues, you know. MSA from the trial in '97
38:19.801 --> 38:23.264
really didn't get big legs under it until Woolworths adopted
38:23.764 --> 38:27.624
in 2011 or '12, thereabouts. And then
38:27.672 --> 38:31.230
it sort of just blossomed. I think if you looked at the,
38:31.439 --> 38:34.837
the history of the, uh, incredibly successful,
38:35.109 --> 38:38.411
um, Certified Angus Beef program in the US, I think it,
38:38.571 --> 38:42.177
it lost money for 15 years before it actually moved into profit. And I think
38:42.677 --> 38:45.976
that's a good analogy, John, because so many things you've got to sink
38:46.088 --> 38:49.406
money in before you see if you'll come out the other side. And it's
38:49.454 --> 38:51.842
easy to be the drunk under the scoreboard and say, look at the waste of
38:52.342 --> 38:55.191
money. And it's a bit like the delayed gratification thing. You've got to do the
38:55.240 --> 38:59.119
work before you get the reward. The overseas visitors are filled with admiration
38:59.151 --> 39:02.293
for MSA now. Let's, uh, there's one other issue I'd like
39:02.517 --> 39:06.028
to discuss briefly with you— the Australian Beef Association
39:06.204 --> 39:08.881
and, and your part. No,
39:09.186 --> 39:13.722
no, um, yeah, Kerry, that's, um, probably overstated
39:13.835 --> 39:17.666
that. Um, I think it
39:18.166 --> 39:21.593
was a seminal moment and it could have changed the direction. Yeah, yes, it could
39:22.093 --> 39:25.664
have. And, um, Like, um, I admire John
39:25.760 --> 39:29.013
Carter, um, and I just think some wonderful people
39:29.061 --> 39:32.169
there. And, you know, the CAMs, and there's a
39:32.669 --> 39:36.464
whole lot of wonderful people in that group. And I've got nothing against ABA,
39:36.992 --> 39:41.223
don't misconstrue that. I just thought at the time we
39:41.723 --> 39:44.668
had some structure, MLA was doing some good work,
39:45.405 --> 39:47.728
we needed to let it run its time,
39:48.754 --> 39:52.444
but we needed some people to push and poke and prod where you needed to
39:52.944 --> 39:55.880
to get it back on track. Did we want to burn the house down and
39:56.378 --> 40:00.264
have the barbarian raid? And, you know, what do they say? Rome wasn't
40:00.764 --> 40:03.700
built in a day, but it was torched in one. Um, I didn't want to
40:04.200 --> 40:07.168
torch MLA, and I came under some very heavy,
40:07.377 --> 40:10.347
heavy criticism from some of our other processors. And I,
40:10.909 --> 40:14.393
I think I was— not all processors have votes because not all processors
40:14.923 --> 40:18.294
feed cattle. But they'd certainly done the numbers and knew what they could get to,
40:18.310 --> 40:21.391
and, and I didn't loan my votes to that.
40:21.519 --> 40:24.697
And yes, I got dragged over the coals severely.
40:24.874 --> 40:29.271
But anyway, it's about making sure your actions
40:29.624 --> 40:33.122
align with your thoughts and values and beliefs. You did make an interesting
40:33.138 --> 40:36.845
reference this morning. You were part of the, uh, of the review
40:36.910 --> 40:40.841
committee in 2003 looking at raising the transaction levy from
40:40.858 --> 40:44.466
$1.50 to $5. Yeah. Was it $3.50
40:44.966 --> 40:48.251
to $5? $3.50 to $5. Yes. So, uh, and you mentioned at the time
40:48.395 --> 40:51.057
that, you know, it's 20 years on, we're still paying the same levy. Do you
40:51.105 --> 40:54.167
have a personal view about where the levy currently sits? Is it
40:54.667 --> 40:57.022
time for some sort of a— well, we know we're going through a review,
40:57.054 --> 41:00.726
but do you personally believe that there's an argument in favour
41:01.226 --> 41:04.670
for an increase? And if so, well, you know, of what sort of scope?
41:04.895 --> 41:08.438
I'm not going to comment there, John, because I might be classed as a
41:08.938 --> 41:12.194
drunk under the scoreboard. I've taken my eye off the ball
41:12.531 --> 41:15.646
with MLA in the last 5,
41:15.983 --> 41:18.616
6 years. We've had other issues with the,
41:18.777 --> 41:22.695
um, with AMIC and, um, the COVID and business
41:22.727 --> 41:26.067
has been tough. And I've backed out of a bit of that industry stuff because,
41:26.163 --> 41:29.599
you know, we've all been through hard times. So I honestly
41:29.631 --> 41:33.372
don't know whether MLA is performing now or not because I'm not
41:33.726 --> 41:37.624
close enough to comment. Um, I thought it was performing well
41:38.377 --> 41:41.503
through the Sam Kakovich ads, through the MSA,
41:41.744 --> 41:45.736
through the sustainability push on farm. I thought there's enough projects
41:46.537 --> 41:48.974
going and worth seeing through.
41:50.224 --> 41:54.072
I'm not entirely sure of the new projects and the new— we're
41:54.572 --> 41:58.416
probably still hanging our hat on MSA where we should be on a new blue
41:58.916 --> 42:02.472
sky project, and I'm not sure who's going to who's got
42:02.504 --> 42:06.401
the appetite to do that. So, um, I mean,
42:06.497 --> 42:10.250
are we— in terms of you talking marketing, and you were the, the domestic marketing
42:10.362 --> 42:14.339
MLA Domestic Marketing Committee chair for, I think, 12, 15 years—
42:14.916 --> 42:17.787
you mentioned, um, hang our hat on MSA and that sort of thing.
42:18.204 --> 42:21.844
Are we responsive enough to things like, for example, this current
42:21.892 --> 42:25.821
fad towards protein-rich diets, whether it be through Ozempic
42:26.321 --> 42:30.151
or whatever, but just, uh, the health-conscious protein, the need for protein in
42:30.651 --> 42:33.954
healthy diets? Should we be milking a trend like that
42:34.002 --> 42:36.764
more proactively than we currently are?
42:37.374 --> 42:41.404
I, uh, I think that's got a life of its own. That's no work
42:41.904 --> 42:44.905
of MLA or industry. That's been a blessing from above.
42:45.161 --> 42:48.935
Um, the Ozempic and that— what are they, GLP-1 family
42:49.435 --> 42:52.098
of drugs? Um, yes, there's a growing consumption there.
42:52.804 --> 42:56.626
That's a free hit our industry's had. We've done nothing to deserve that.
42:57.943 --> 43:01.558
Then you say, should we align to it? Um, do we want
43:02.058 --> 43:05.318
to align with an injectable to make— encourage you to eat
43:05.818 --> 43:09.736
more meat? I'm not sure that's where we need to go. I must— I'd
43:10.236 --> 43:13.046
have the most unbalanced diet, but I still believe in balanced diet. I could be
43:13.592 --> 43:16.292
healthier if I had a more balanced diet, I'd say. Um,
43:17.127 --> 43:20.517
so I'm heavy on red meat anyway. Should we do more?
43:21.305 --> 43:25.272
I'd be careful hitching my wagon to a injectable when
43:25.321 --> 43:29.270
you don't know the long-term ramifications. Should we
43:29.770 --> 43:32.273
do some trial on it? No, it's probably up to Big Pharma to do that.
43:33.108 --> 43:36.319
You know, what else can we do? Gee, you've stumped me
43:36.819 --> 43:39.755
with that. I can't think off the top of my head what really needs doing.
43:40.429 --> 43:43.977
We're in a sort of a maintenance and extension cycle, and— but
43:44.122 --> 43:46.578
you always need to be aware of a trend,
43:47.477 --> 43:51.024
and I'm not sure what that trend be, to be honest
43:51.524 --> 43:54.728
with you. Um, no, tough question, Mr. Condon.
43:55.032 --> 43:58.447
Does it, does it surprise you at how strongly,
43:59.586 --> 44:03.530
uh, beef consumption, not only in Australia but also internationally in the United States and
44:04.030 --> 44:08.227
elsewhere, how strongly it's held up in the face of these rapidly
44:08.324 --> 44:12.204
rising prices for meat at retail and in food service
44:12.252 --> 44:15.779
for that matter? Yes, because I think it's gone beyond where
44:16.279 --> 44:19.500
we would have perceived consumer thresholds would have I don't
44:20.000 --> 44:24.062
think anyone would have thought they'd walk into a butcher shop and see an MSA
44:24.562 --> 44:28.529
cube roll for $79 a kilo. You just— I don't—
44:28.705 --> 44:32.942
I think it's gone beyond. And I
44:33.442 --> 44:36.898
think that's because we're not harvesting the value
44:37.059 --> 44:40.079
of the mid or butt cuts and things like that.
44:41.195 --> 44:43.669
We're either relying on the loin,
44:44.575 --> 44:47.325
and we've got— I've never done the numbers. That's a good question, John.
44:48.467 --> 44:51.692
We could perhaps be getting 45 or 52%
44:52.478 --> 44:56.408
out of our loin. I would think, um, waggies might be 55
44:56.908 --> 45:00.162
or 60, and then all the other cuts drop into a manufacturing
45:00.195 --> 45:03.243
trim. So we're talking 17% for the loin? Yeah,
45:03.467 --> 45:06.034
yeah. So I think, um,
45:07.077 --> 45:10.302
we need to do more with our mid-cuts. Unfortunately,
45:10.318 --> 45:13.222
a lot of those are slow cook. Well, there has been a bit of revival
45:13.286 --> 45:17.085
in smokers and, you know, those smoky
45:17.117 --> 45:20.404
barbecue type cooking arrangements, slow cooks.
45:20.949 --> 45:23.962
But then people are time poor. Perhaps the big issue there is to have a
45:24.475 --> 45:27.858
slow cooked product shelf ready. I don't know if you take our
45:28.358 --> 45:32.074
cues from overseas. I mean, the Japanese are the masters of using secondary cuts
45:32.574 --> 45:35.873
for other purposes through fine slicing and a million different treatments.
45:36.177 --> 45:39.960
You know, there probably is more scope to, to exploit
45:40.025 --> 45:43.247
and extract more dollars out of, out of the shoulder meat
45:43.808 --> 45:47.238
and the butts. And I agree. I think we should be doing that. But,
45:47.334 --> 45:50.891
um, as I say, we're almost sweet cuts or,
45:51.885 --> 45:55.699
um, grinding meat. Yeah. I just want to discuss,
45:55.891 --> 45:59.609
uh, animal welfare. You've always been big on that. How do
45:59.657 --> 46:03.246
you balance welfare standards that customers and regulators
46:03.278 --> 46:06.932
demand these days with what's actually achievable at scale?
46:07.589 --> 46:11.162
I think the big gap in that, if you've ever seen
46:11.275 --> 46:14.579
the McDonald or those people with their
46:15.079 --> 46:18.991
low-stress stock handling. And I've done a low-stress stock
46:19.491 --> 46:22.970
handling school with witches' hats in the paddock. We've unloaded some sale yard cows,
46:23.483 --> 46:26.146
and myself and 2 other people had to walk them around witches' hats.
46:26.836 --> 46:30.687
And we're lacking a lot of stockmanship because we're not getting people off
46:31.187 --> 46:35.083
the farms. And I think the people are designing yards
46:35.179 --> 46:38.051
now to keep people out of the yards for safety,
46:38.484 --> 46:42.092
and I admire that. But there's a downside of
46:42.592 --> 46:46.438
that in that you lose your imprinting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you lose your
46:47.208 --> 46:50.303
flight zone awareness, you lose your ability to read stock.
46:50.768 --> 46:54.600
So I, I think there should be more effort put into low-stress
46:55.100 --> 46:58.978
stock handling and education and, and just people understanding
46:59.074 --> 47:02.602
what stock do. It's a, it's a drama for our business to
47:03.102 --> 47:07.460
get people to work livestock And we try to have good yards, but a
47:07.589 --> 47:09.618
good old stockman, they're invaluable.
47:10.729 --> 47:14.097
Regulations, Terry, what's happening? More and more regulation,
47:14.372 --> 47:18.379
it seems. Is this regulation improving the industry or just adding
47:18.412 --> 47:21.739
costs without adding safety or welfare value or customer value?
47:23.330 --> 47:26.993
That's a difficult question. We needed more regulation
47:28.616 --> 47:32.122
from the Woodward Royal Commission going back to the 1982s or '80s,
47:32.346 --> 47:36.447
you know, mid-'80s, and we needed more regulation. It was rafferty rules,
47:36.479 --> 47:39.163
you know, it was wild, it was a wild, wild west.
47:39.858 --> 47:43.519
Um, but the government officials were
47:44.019 --> 47:46.570
implicit in that. So, um,
47:47.316 --> 47:51.922
I think they need to penalize harder
47:52.422 --> 47:55.939
for breaches, but in balance with rewarding
47:55.971 --> 48:00.022
good behavior. Um, it's a classic carrot and stick. If you only
48:00.118 --> 48:03.410
use regulations as a stick, you're not going to
48:03.988 --> 48:07.761
engender the type of behaviour you want. It doesn't matter whether it's food safety or
48:08.261 --> 48:12.225
livestock handling or whatever. You've got to be able to reward good performers.
48:13.124 --> 48:16.914
Nothing— Lee Matthews, the old football coach, he said, I've worked
48:16.978 --> 48:20.864
out if you see someone doing a good thing, you should tell them. Nothing makes
48:20.912 --> 48:23.577
people do better than if they think they're doing a good thing. So,
48:24.219 --> 48:27.347
you know, you can I'm a bit more on encouragement rather than punishment,
48:27.363 --> 48:33.071
if I can say that. And, uh, careful because you get to regulation
48:33.745 --> 48:37.192
and it sort of goes hand in hand with sanction. And somehow there
48:37.692 --> 48:40.832
should be some way to regulate and reward good performers.
48:41.297 --> 48:44.760
Do you think the industry overall has done a good job in telling
48:44.824 --> 48:47.935
its own story, or has it too often let critics take
48:48.435 --> 48:52.408
the narrative? You look at the imitation meat, the vegan
48:52.440 --> 48:55.582
meat thing, they were saying how bad the industry was
48:56.082 --> 48:59.844
and all that. And, um, John McKillop and those people at AMAC, they put
49:00.344 --> 49:02.712
a lot of work into that, and I think that's been negated.
49:03.241 --> 49:05.517
Um, but yes, the, um,
49:06.526 --> 49:10.068
substitute meat, whatever you want to call it, um, it got too
49:10.568 --> 49:12.840
many legs with high-profile backers.
49:13.657 --> 49:17.728
Um, but it's almost become a non-event
49:18.064 --> 49:20.821
because they've all gradually faded out.
49:20.885 --> 49:24.492
But it was important we promoted
49:24.992 --> 49:28.419
our industry better in those times and debunked some
49:28.919 --> 49:32.956
of that nonsense that was raised. So you can always
49:32.988 --> 49:36.466
promote your industry better. We should always try and have a strong
49:36.595 --> 49:40.282
narrative, and you can't have a strong narrative unless you
49:40.782 --> 49:43.968
can support it with information. So you can't go out and say we're the best
49:44.289 --> 49:48.441
beef industry in the world, but if you say that we've got— we've reduced
49:48.941 --> 49:52.048
age of turnoff, we've got lifetime traceability traceability. We've got the
49:52.064 --> 49:55.287
best grading system in the world. We've got the longest shelf life in the world.
49:55.511 --> 49:59.391
We've got the best travel time in the world. Um, if you've got hard evidence
49:59.891 --> 50:03.255
that you can benchmark against the rest of the world, yeah,
50:03.271 --> 50:06.318
you should be making those claims and we should talk about it. I think the
50:06.818 --> 50:10.374
fake meat story was answered at the checkout, wasn't it? Yes,
50:10.743 --> 50:13.869
particularly during COVID Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
50:13.965 --> 50:17.557
Now I know you're limited to what you can say about the change in ownership
50:18.057 --> 50:21.723
of your business, but you have a reputation for being one of the busiest,
50:21.788 --> 50:25.750
hardest working people at a very high level. So what's the plan for the future
50:26.250 --> 50:29.907
for Terry Nolan? Um, all I can
50:30.407 --> 50:34.373
say about that is that, um, and I, and I have
50:34.389 --> 50:37.811
to be cautious, um, because the deal's not
50:37.924 --> 50:40.897
done. I know John reported it being done, but it's phase 1 and we're in
50:41.397 --> 50:45.269
a, in a, in a, um, uh, objections period.
50:45.317 --> 50:47.972
So we might go to phase 2, and I don't want to bring that upon
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us. So, um, well, happy to do it if that's what happens, but,
50:51.362 --> 50:55.217
um, to be clear, the deal's not done. I'd had an approach from
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the chairman of the board back in February,
50:58.912 --> 51:02.413
and, um, he asked me would I take up a
51:02.462 --> 51:05.722
position on the Hewitt board. I said I'm flattered
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and I'm humbled to be asked, and yes, I'd love to do it.
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But being a bush kid growing up with horses, one thing
51:12.726 --> 51:16.163
I could never do was ride 2 horses at one time. And I said,
51:16.179 --> 51:19.407
I'm going to ride the Nolan horse until the day the deal's done, and then
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I'll dismount, and I will get on the Ewart horse if I'm still
51:23.260 --> 51:27.114
required, and I'll give it my 100%. So it was important.
51:27.194 --> 51:30.743
I just— I didn't want to cloud the sale with what I'm
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doing. Kerry, to be honest with you, my future is not
51:35.096 --> 51:38.209
important. Um, it's about looking after my
51:38.709 --> 51:42.819
staff, our community. Um, I still believe
51:42.851 --> 51:47.093
in legacy, and we have been selective
51:48.154 --> 51:52.074
on who we've engaged with, and we've had lots of people want
51:52.090 --> 51:55.834
to engage. So if all goes well,
51:56.413 --> 52:00.061
I probably won't have to work. I'll work because I believe
52:00.561 --> 52:03.997
there's a purpose in it. If I find purpose in the work, I'll work.
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If I'm not wanted, I'm not going to get upset. If I am wanted,
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I'll give it 100%. Terry, a great privilege to speak
52:12.130 --> 52:15.532
with you today. Congratulations for all you've done for the industry. Absolutely outstanding.
52:15.661 --> 52:18.480
Thank you for being on the grill for Beef Central. Thank you, Kerry, and thank
52:18.980 --> 52:22.588
you, John. And thank you for joining us again. Until next time, I'm Kerry
52:23.088 --> 52:27.103
Lonergan, and this has been the Weekly Grill, proudly brought to you by Rhinogard
52:27.282 --> 52:31.219
IBR and Bovi-Shield MH1, the one spray, one shot, one time
52:31.332 --> 52:34.969
BRD vaccinations by Zoetis, and Ceres
52:35.082 --> 52:39.468
Gen 6. Smarter selection today means stronger herds and better
52:39.580 --> 52:40.721
returns tomorrow.